


Lethal Guardian

by EvilCopepod



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Father Figures, Gen, Occurs Directly After Homecoming, POV Alternating, Peter and the symbiote don't get along, Role Models, Team as Family, Work In Progress, characters to be added as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-07-12 21:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilCopepod/pseuds/EvilCopepod
Summary: After the events in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter decides that he's ready for any bad guys that his neighborhood can throw at him, but finds himself in over his head when he stumbles upon a crime syndicate that has tech to rival the Chitauri weaponry. On top of that, he finds that something else is after the same criminals, a new vigilante named Venom that doesn't play well with others. When Eddie finds out that Spider-Man isn't quite a man yet, he does what he can to keep the kid safe-- while fighting crime, trying to hold down a job, and coexisting with a morally challenged alien.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for checking out my fic! It starts out a bit slow, but it will get more exciting when the two (three) are able to interact more.  
> This is going to be a mix of movie and comic Venom (so it's liable to change a bit when the movie comes out), and mostly MCU Spidey.  
> For those of you who were reading my other fic, don't worry, I plan on finishing. But if you're interested in reading another story about a goo monster and a cocky kid, you can check this one out too.

Things had started looking up ever since Peter had passed Tony Stark’s test. He’d been able to keep the suit, with all its features still unlocked, Happy was answering his phone calls almost once every week, and May knew about him being Spider-Man now. When she had found out, she had flipped out just like he’d expected, but she took it a lot better than he had thought. He hated that she had to worry so much about him now, and that she was always lecturing him about the most recent Spider-Man video she had seen, but it was such a relief not to have to lie to her anymore. It also helped to have an adult to talk to about his issues as Spider-Man, as Happy and Tony were always so busy. May had come up with a few rules, which was a lot better than he was expecting (grounded for life and having to explain to Mr. Stark why his suit had been thrown out), so he did his best to follow them. She set a curfew for him and made him swear he would call the police if there was a gun or any weapon worse than one instead of going in himself, to keep his grades up, always answer his phone calls while on patrol, and that he wouldn’t lie to her about needing any kind of help. 

So far, he’d been following the rules, and Karen was a big help with that. He could answer her phone calls while keeping his hands free (and Karen could muffle the sounds of fighting), and she always reminded him when it was getting close to curfew and exactly how long it would take him to get home. Technically, he _did_ call the police when there were guns involved, but by the time they arrived Spider-Man had taken down all of the bad guys. Luckily, they weren’t too eager to admit that he was doing their job for them, so May didn’t hear about it. His biggest problem right now was that he was getting a low grade in English, a _C+_ , which was a smudge on his current straight A record, and if he didn’t get it up by the end of the year, he’d be stuck with it and May wouldn’t be the only one freaking out about that.

His patrols were usually during daylight hours, but when it wasn’t a school night May let him stay out a bit later. On a Saturday night, he found himself following a rumor about more arms dealers in New York. Most of them had scattered or been caught after the Vulture had been taken down, and they had seriously lost their ability to steal alien technology. That meant the prices were going up, and security was increasing for the few that still had weapons left to sell. Peter knew better than to rush in there without scouting the place first, and he wasn’t going to have Karen call the cops before he confirmed what was going on inside the place. Sending out Droney to scope the place, he perched up somewhere safe to watch the video feed. The drone didn’t even make it to the building before the sound of gunfire made it clear that there were weapons down there, but not if they were the main reason for the gathering. The drone returned as Peter swung toward the warehouse. 

“Peter, I detect gunfire. It’s time to call the police.” 

“Yeah! Do that! I can’t let these people hurt each other, though!” If it weren’t for Karen, Peter was sure that the police would have been able to recognize his voice by now. But Karen was able to make up different voices and keep the police from seeing that the calls keep coming from the same number. When Peter busted the door down, he was expecting to have to dodge a few bullets, but the firing was all going on near the back of the warehouse. The place was a mess, there was a hole torn into the ceiling (that had definitely _not_ been there ten minutes ago), boxes were smashed to pieces, and bullets littered the floor. There was blood too, and a few bodies, Karen confirmed that they didn’t have any vital signs before Peter went to check on them. Thankfully, there were more alive than dead, but they were all webbed up in a black substance, in a way that was eerily like how Spider-Man tied up criminals. 

“The amount of fatalities exceeds the crime you normally deal with. I recommend retreating.” 

“No. I have to stop this.” Even if the cops were right outside, he wouldn’t have backed down, it was clear now that this wasn’t just a gunfight. He was able to move fast, as the gunfire masked any sounds he made. When it stopped, he was worried about more than being heard, as it meant someone had won the fight. 

“Where are they?” Peter shuddered at the sound of the voice, it was deep and monstrous, there was no way that was actually his voice. He peered around a crate, seeing the back of the man who had attacked all of these people. The guy was huge, or at least his suit was, if it was a suit. No, it had to be some kind of suit to give him that power, whatever the material was it was shiny and seemed to be moving. 

_Nanotech?_ Peter wondered, but before he could have Karen do a scan, he heard the pleading of the man that was being menaced by the huge guy. He hadn’t even been able to see him past that massive, black body suit. “Karen, give me the interrogation mode voice.” Peter said, not only because of his own tone, but because it was good at hiding any shakiness in his voice. He came out from behind the crate and walked toward the man’s back. “Hey, you’re coming with me!” Spider-Man said loudly, hoping his voice was deep enough to match the other’s intimidating tone. It didn’t seem so, as he was ignored and the man drew back a hand to attack the cowering villain again. He shot a web that hit the back of the large, black and white palm to keep him from striking, “Let him go and--” Before he could finish his sentence, the web he was holding onto was grabbed and he was jerked toward the vigilante. The man turned just in time to punch him hard in the chest and send Peter flying across the room, getting embedded into the thin, metal wall of the warehouse.

Spider-Man stared, shocked as his attacker grabbed the criminal and jumped away, out of the hole in the ceiling and onto the rooftops. Peter was frozen, not because of how he was stuck or how hard he had been hit. He’d gotten out of tighter spots and bounced back from harder hits, but he was suddenly met with an entirely new kind of terror. Whoever that was, or whatever that was, had attacked him. 

And hadn’t set off his spider-sense while doing it.


	2. Chapter 2

New York was even more hectic than San Francisco, but it wasn’t nearly as beautiful; and everyone was _ruder_ here. Eddie was sure that was just his nostalgia talking, his desire to go back to a place that had nothing but trouble left for him. His entire life had to be uprooted, he had to cut off his ties with family, friends, and work associates. None of that could be blamed entirely on the symbiote, before he’d even heard of the creature his world had been turned upside down by the Life Foundation when he’d tried to expose the organization. It wasn’t until the symbiote came along that he found a new purpose, a way to change the world no matter what people thought of him. 

There was an audible cracking sound as Venom snapped the neck of the struggling man in their grasp, having gotten all the information out of him that was possible. Venom had dragged him to one of the worse off neighborhoods, so even if someone heard his screams from the rooftop it was unlikely they’d be interrupted. The symbiote flowed back into Eddie as he dug through the dead man’s pockets.

_**Should have killed them all, Eddie.** _

“No, we killed too many. They weren’t all as bad as this one. ”

_**Should have killed the red one that got in our way. Or bitten his hand off as a warning.** _

“That was… what was his name?” Eddie pulled out the man’s wallet, “Spider-Guy, I think. I’ve seen him on the news here a lot. He’s some kind of hero. He shouldn’t be a problem unless he gets in our way.” It seemed like the symbiote was going to argue further, but it got excited when Eddie pulled out a wad of bills from the wallet, as it knew that money meant food. Eddie was able to climb down off the roof without suiting up, the symbiote assisting as it filled his head with the names of different brands of chocolate, even listing some of their common prices. It was a step up from when it used to just grab them off the shelf and start eating them in the store like an entitled toddler, so Eddie felt bad about disappointing the creature. He pulled up his hood and turned out of the alley right as he heard footsteps, bumping into a woman, who dropped her apron in surprise and clutched her purse with one hand inside, no doubt gripping a weapon.

“’scuse me.” Eddie said, picking up her apron and handing it to her. He then walked past her, feeling the symbiote roil around inside of him, but it was tactful enough to remain inside of him while letting its displeasure be known. 

**_You gave her the money! Why?!_ **

“She’s needs it more than we do, she’s got three kids and has to take care of them on her own.” The man had spotted her and her family a few times while scoping out the area, and her after work route home was the same every night.

_**She will have just one to feed when they fight and only the strongest child remains.** _

“That’s… That is _not_ how it works with human kids. At all.” 

_**You left food for them on the roof.** _

Eddie shook his head as the symbiote’s laugh reverberated in his head, which didn’t make it clear whether it was joking. “We don’t kill people for their money, and if we start taking it from them to use…” He didn’t have to finish, his point being clear to the creature; they would be more encouraged to kill people if that meant they made more money. “I’ve got an interview coming up too. If I get the job, I’ll let you pick out something.” 

_**I’m getting king-sized.**_  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
After getting over the initial shock, Spider-Man had jumped back into action, moving to get the kidnapped criminal back. He saw a few cops had pulled up, but he saw no sign of the two men he had been looking for. He searched all around the area, sending out Droney as well, but they found no signs at all. Whoever that guy was, he was really fast, and despite his size he didn’t leave even a dent to be followed. 

Karen warned him of his curfew, and Peter was forced to give up, after following a cold trail for over an hour he figured that he wasn’t going to find them. Peter didn’t realize how tired he was until he made it back into his room. For the first few weeks, May had told him she wanted him to come tell him as soon as he got home and give her a report, but she had eased up on that. So he was able to strip off his costume and just climb into bed, not in the mood to talk to her about the disastrous night. He heard the door open, right around the time his curfew was he guessed, and through his sleepy haze he felt May tuck him in and run her hand over his hair before leaving again. 

Despite the horrific night, he slept all through the night and only had peaceful dreams. That ended when he was awakened by the sound of his name being shouted. He got up quick when he heard it was his Aunt, not even bothering to get dressed as he burst out of his room. He could tell May had just gotten up too, her hair was messy and she was still in pajamas. However, what really caught his attention was the headline on the current news story on the TV that was paired with Spider-Man’s image.

_Queens’ own webslinger top suspect in triple homicide._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a bit of Peter to further the plot at the end!


	3. Chapter 3

Peter was getting the third degree from everyone: May, Ned, Happy, even Mr. Stark gave him a call. Thankfully, none of them thought for a second that he was responsible for any of the murders, but they all wanted to know who it was. Peter didn’t have a solid answer for them, even the footage that Karen had taken wasn’t enough, as he’d only seen the front of the man when he was being pulled toward him at high speed, the blur obscuring what she’d recorded. He knew that he was wearing a freaky mask, and while he hadn’t sent Ned the few pictures Karen had taken like he had for Mr. Stark, he drew him a quick picture text and sent it to him: 

His artistic skills made it so Ned thought it was a cute looking mask, but Peter had to insist that it was actually terrifying and almost seemed to be moving. All of the adults in his life agreed that he should stay away from whoever this was, and that Tony was looking into finding out who they were. Well, _almost_ all of the adults. There was one in particular that thought Spider-Man was indeed the culprit and wanted Peter to get up close.  


“Nobody wants to see these!” Peter flinched a bit as his Spider-Man photos were slammed back down onto the desk after hardly being glanced at. After bringing in photos to J. Jonah Jameson for months, he thought he would be more immune to his shouting. But as the man’s normal tone of voice classified as shouting, he was always able to get louder. “Didn’t you see the news? What, you haven’t checked your Facepage this morning? They’re finally cracking down on that menace! I need proof, Parker, and if you deliver, I’ll pay you double!” Just then, his secretary came into the office, walking past Peter to hand him a file, “But no pictures of bodies, you leave that to the criminal investigators.” The secretary leaned down and whispered something in his ear, making him grimace. “And bring an adult with you.” He added, which only seemed to please the secretary a little. “Get out of here! And if you bring me any pictures of Spider-Man getting a kitten out of a tree, you’re fired!”  


“I don’t actually work here, Mr. Jameson.” Peter said as he gathered his photos, trying to think of how he was going to take pictures that proved he was innocent. The man didn’t seem to be listening anymore as he didn’t respond, so Peter left. He’d originally started taking and selling the photos to have a bit of money to spare so Aunt May didn’t have to keep buying him things (his backpack body count was nearing Mr. Stark’s age by now, he figured), but now he’d made it his mission to change the way people saw Spider-Man. It didn’t help that under even the most innocent images, the Daily Bugle always managed to write up some kind of negative piece, but he wasn’t going to give up. This was his big chance to prove that Spider-Man really _was_ innocent. Because even though Jameson hated Spider-Man, he always printed the facts, and would be eager to have the Bugle be the first news outlet to confirm that Spider-Man wasn’t the culprit. Of course, that meant he would have to disobey Aunt May and Mr. Stark. He was going after that masked freak, and even if he couldn’t take him down alone, he was going to make sure he didn’t get away with hurting one more person.  


He had Spider-Man duty just about all day, once he’d finished his homework and had some lunch of course. Aunt May wanted him back before dark this time, but he promised that he would stay in Queens and not go out to a random warehouse again. The time he wasn’t spending on saving people (sometimes from danger, sometimes from mild inconveniences like holding up their car for a tire change) was spent looking for clues about the new vigilante he had spotted last night. No one had seen him before, and Peter was guessing the only ones that had were already apprehended by the police after last night’s shoot out. As the sun went down, he wasn’t any closer to his goal, he hadn’t even heard about any possible weapons deals that might attract him. He called up Happy, giving his voicemail a rundown of the day’s events (excluding his sleuthing) and went back to swinging through the city. Small crime had been going up since the Avengers moved out, which was strange as that was something rarely handled by the team. Maybe it just made them nervous to think that Thor or someone could walk into the store they were robbing. He managed to stop a couple of muggers after dark, one armed with a knife, the other armed with a very realistic looking toy gun, and the third he actually had to escort to the police station as the woman he’d been trying to steal from had gotten him with pepper spray before he got a chance.  


“I think we’re going to have to call it a night, Karen.” Peter said, looking over the New York skyline, the sun having set but it was anything but dark in the city. He had Droney flying around to look for any trouble that he could have missed, but the most dangerous thing it encountered was a hungry cat.  


“You still have three quarters of an hour remaining before your curfew ends. I have several alleyways in my database that you have yet to visit tonight if you want.”  


“That’s a good idea. But let’s still try to be home fifteen minutes early, May would like that.” Karen started filling up the screen in front of his eyes just as a dark shape crossed his field of vision. “Karen! Close everything on the screen!” Even without having the screen zoom in, her was able to see his target jumping from one building to the other. Peter didn’t hesitate to swing after, “Put on the deep voice again!”  


“Done. Shall I contact Mr. Stark?”  


“No. I can… I can handle this.” He knew the neighbourhood, this was an open space too, he figured he could always run if he got overwhelmed. The man had stopped moving, he was just staring out over the city, it was the perfect chance to sneak up on him, but Peter wanted to see if he could get any information first just in case things went South. He landed on the roof behind the guy, audible enough to make him turn, but once again he didn’t even move his head to look. Peter had put his hands on his hips and everything to try and look intimidating.  


“I’m not going to let you get away this time.” Peter announced.  


**“You can’t keep us from doing anything.”**  


“So, there’s more than one of you.” Peter was thrilled to have this new piece of information, but still felt insulted by the lack of respect from this guy. He started to walk toward him, making sure that he wasn’t going to get hit- but he underestimated the others reach, and he was backhanded hard enough to send him flying off the roof. He saved himself from crashing through a window by firing webs, pulling himself back onto the roof and kicking the man in the back, causing him to stumble forward a bit.  


“It’s gonna take more than one hit to—” Peter lost his voice as the man turned around. No, there was no way that was a man. As he advanced, Peter backed up quickly, “That is _definitely_ not a mask!” The creature lunged at him, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him off of the ground. Peter instinctively grabbed at its arms, only to find his hands were stuck to it when he tried to pull away. Thankfully, the other wasn’t trying to strangle him, but it didn’t make it any more comfortable.  


**“You’re punier than you sound.”** It was terrifying to see that mouth move, which was actually more teeth than mouth, but Peter couldn’t keep from running his own.  


“You’re exactly as big as you sound.” Peter couldn’t get his web shooters free, but he wasn’t completely out of options. “Taser webs!” he shouted, making Karen fire the webs right against the creature’s skin, the electricity visible as they went off. Peter was also able to see that, besides a little stirring of the black substance, the attack had no effect.  


**“You have quite a bit of backbone, but if you keep that up, we’re going to tear it out and use it as a hula-hoop.”**  


“That’s disgusting!” Peter planned on going on about the logistics of making a hula hoop out of a spinal cord but decided he didn’t want to think about it. He would have tried kicking him away, but his feet had gotten stuck too. He struggled to get away as he felt the monster carrying him toward the edge of the building. “I don’t see anyone else, are you using that like… the royal _we_?”  


**“Don’t try to follow or stop us again.”** Venom said before dropping him off of the building. Spider-Man reacted quick, twisting his body midair and flicking his wrists as he fired webbing at the building. Or at least, he had tried to fire webbing. He found that his web shooters had been coated in black gunk after he fired the taser webs, and he didn’t have the time or space to try the gliders. Normally, his spider-sense would go off when he fell from such a height, but it was clear why he didn’t when he landed on something soft. Soft and cushiony, but not at all pleasant, the garbage bag he landed on kept him from getting hurt but it burst on impact, and he was covered in something that couldn’t be classified as a solid or a liquid.  


“Oh no.” he said as the dumpster lid closed by itself from being jostled, then there was a loud _thud_ on the top of it, the lid dented as Venom landed on it. The creature hopped away a second later, leaving Peter in the horrible smelling substance. He got up and pushed on the lid, but it didn’t budge, meaning that it had been sealed shut. Peter would have felt bad about breaking the garbage bin if it didn’t already have a concave lid on account of Venom's landing. Once he was out, he jumped up onto the roof immediately to see if he could spot the other, but of course there was no sign at all.  


“Karen, do you have a map of hose locations? I don’t think air freshener is going to cut it." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that amazing piece of art is by me


	4. Chapter 4

_Ultron spotted dumpster diving behind Best Buy!_ was the title of the garbage that Eddie was writing. He put his best into it, giving good reason as to why and how the villain had survived, and how he was starting from scratch now that the Avengers were out of town. He didn’t know if anyone actually read these articles, but he really hoped they didn’t. Thankfully, since he was only writing the occasional article he wasn’t required to put his name on it (Hell, from how quickly his resume had been looked over he doubted the editor actually knew his name), so he couldn’t be traced back to it. 

The symbiote had been quiet for most of the time he’d been writing; this would have been strange if it weren't for what had occurred before the man had sat down to write. When he’d signed up for his library card, there had been a bowl filled with candy, most likely intended for children when they came to check out their books. As the librarian turned to get his card, Eddie heard a quiet _clink_ and looked to see that in half a second, the entire bowl had been meticulously cleared of all the bite-size chocolates, leaving only the hard candies behind. The creature had spent its time quietly eating away at them while Eddie worked. The man contemplated his next sentence, scratching at his chin in thought, and the symbiote took this opportunity to shoot a small appendage from his sleeve, and shove a cold, slimy, saliva covered piece of caramel into his mouth. Eddie kept from gagging, realizing that the symbiote had licked off the chocolate before sharing, and with nowhere to spit it out, he had to eat it. 

_**You need food too, Eddie.** _

“I know, but candy’s not going to cut it. Just- Just finish the rest of what you have on your own, _please_.” 

_**No money, no food. I can catch something for you. There is a lot of meat in this city.** _

“I’m not going to—no pigeons, or rats, or whatever you’ve seen crawling around the parks.”

_**Meant domestic like cats and dogs.** _

“That’s _way_ worse. We don’t eat people’s pets.” That last part got him a strange look from one of the fellow library patrons, so he lowered his tone. “Could you keep quiet for a few minutes? I’m trying to work.” It wasn’t because he was worried about people seeing him talk to himself, it was actually common to hear people talking under their breath while typing something up on the computer. He was having trouble concentrating as he wasn’t quite used to holding up a conversation in his head while writing.

_**I’m bored. It’s** _ **boring _here, Eddie. I can’t do anything fun with all these humans here._**

The creature had a point, as it didn’t sleep, there was nothing for it to do while he worked for hours in silence. He got some headphones from the front desk, but instead of putting them on his ears he just let them stay on his neck to allow the symbiote to hear. “Only use my left hand, alright? And tell me before you do.” The symbiote moved his hand, doing its best to type in the search engine, making it understandable enough that the suggested search came up. When it had picked out a video to watch, Eddie resized the tab so he was able to work while it did, only interrupting every so often as it looked up a new video, but it mostly went along with whatever autoplay gave it. The man was able to finish the article and even start up the beginnings of a few more of them, but he began nodding off after a bit.

_**Go to sleep, Eddie.** _

“I don’t need any sleep.” 

_**You do. That stupid spider threw us off.** _

“He only bugged us for five minutes.” 

**_He saw who we are, and he will tell his friends. We should have killed him._ **

“His super buddies finding out about us now is better than them finding out when they trace his death back to us. ‘sides, he’s not really a threat.”

_**He can hit us hard, and I don’t like his voice.** _

“That’s not his real voice, he’s speaking through some kind of machine to disguise himself.” Eddie figured that the suit was a lot like Iron Man’s, but much sleeker. He wasn’t sure who the man under the suit was and didn’t plan on trying to find out as long as his attempts to stop Venom weren’t serious. 

_**Still, he has you worried, you are not sleeping. If we aren’t going to eat him, then you have to sleep now.** _

“In front of all these people?”

_**Yes. I will make it look like you are awake by going on the computer.** _

“Are you sure this isn’t because you want to watch videos longer?”

_**…That is just a bonus.** _

Eddie snorted, but decided to do as he was asked, a cushioned chair in a heated library was a lot better than what he’d find on the streets. The symbiote kept him upright as he slept, no one suspected he was typing in his sleep, and especially not after the symbiote flailed his arms every so often to prove to the rest of the humans that Eddie was awake.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Even after he had hosed himself off (and gotten himself chased out of the very angry homeowner's yard), he still smelled terrible. The hose had caused the fluid to seep in deeper as well, so his skin had started to get irritated and itchy. He was able to retrieve his backpack he’d hidden, but after being worn for about a minute it was soaked through with filth. Swinging through the air in a soaked costume was freezing, but he thought being cold was better than heating up whatever had been in the dumpster. Aunt May came to the rescue, bringing a garbage bag to dump the costume in before he climbed inside, so he didn’t drip everywhere. They didn’t have a private washing machine in their apartment, so he took the suit into the shower and washed it along with himself. 

Coming home smelling like garbage wasn’t a huge concern to Aunt May, even before he became Spider-Man it wasn’t too uncommon whenever he went scavenging for tech and wasn’t careful enough. Peter sat at the kitchen table, salvaging what he could from the condemned backpack, which wasn’t good enough quality to survive the washing machine. May brought him a heated up plate of lentil tofu lasagna and sat next to him.

“These are cute.” She said, looking through the pictures of Spider-Man, “Can I put them on the fridge?” 

“No, that would be weird.” Peter said, his mouth half full of food. 

“How is that weird? They’re great photos you took, and it helps that they’re pictures of you too.” 

“I’ll take a picture of a flower or sunset for you to put up.” He offered, the fact that they _were_ pictures of him is what made it embarrassing. If Ned came over and saw them up on the fridge, he’d never hear the end of it. “You can keep them, if you want.” 

“You mean that none of these sold?” When Peter shook his head glumly, May frowned. “These are some of your best! That Jameson— The Daily Globe would kill for shots like these. And they don’t write slander all the time about you either.” 

“The Daily Globe _also_ doesn’t publish photos from anyone under eighteen.” Peter didn’t add the fact that they wouldn’t want as nearly as many pictures of Spider-Man as Jameson did. “He didn’t say there was anything wrong with the pictures, he wanted some of… well, what was on the news last night.” 

“Oh.” Aunt May took Peter’s free hand in hers, giving it a comforting squeeze, “Did anyone try to arrest you?” 

“A couple of policemen wanted to question me, but I got out of there quick. Mr. Stark is keeping the government from doing anything serious.” He didn’t know how long that would last, Mr. Stark had already gone out on a limb to keep his identity a secret with the Sokovia Accords going into effect. They were starting to go beyond just the Avengers, to make heroes into government agents and make them accountable for everything they did. Peter rarely got into high stake battles like the Avengers did, where there were extreme amounts of casualties. But, he couldn't imagine having to pay for all the vehicles he had damaged when saving people from them (or using them as weapons _to_ save people). He couldn't expect him to take care of this while Peter did nothing, even if it meant breaking his promise not to go after the culprit. 

“Did you see that man again? The one who did it?” Peter knew she’d been building up to the question, but it almost seemed like she was reading his mind from the timing of it. He didn’t think he could outright lie about it, even if he didn't have proof that his aunt was slightly telepathic. 

“I did, from far away. I didn’t follow him or anything like that.” Which was half true, as he hadn’t followed Venom much at all since the creature had disappeared out of sight once more. 

“Good. If you see him again, call the authorities and get out of there. They’ll find out that it wasn’t you who did anything wrong, and you can shove these heroic pictures back into Jameson’s face.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” Of all his powers, Aunt May’s absolute favorite was his spider-sense, as it kept him safe. He’d told Tony that this thing didn’t set it off, but he didn’t have the heart to tell Aunt May about it. Tonight was the last time he was going to let that monster get away with murder and away from him. It was easier to ask for an apology than for permission when it came to most adults, especially Aunt May, and he would prove to her and everybody else that he didn't need to be coddled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, Peter pushes Venom a bit too far...  
> Also, what kind of videos do you think the symbiote was watching? Feel free to guess in the comments!


	5. Chapter 5

Peter had planned on analyzing the substance that had been stuck to his web shooters, especially since he couldn’t get it off with anything before bed. It was gone when he woke up, and as he hadn’t asked Karen to scan it, he didn’t get any info on it. The program had recorded the time it dissolved, and he found it lasted several times longer than his web fluid. If he hadn’t been up close and personal with the creature, he would have wondered if it designed its own web fluid. It was obvious now that it was a substance that the creature produced on its own. 

He wasn’t as eager to get out of school as usual, finding that if he thought about his duties all day, he ended up missing out on what was being taught. The main thing was whatever his literature teacher was going on about; that was the only class that he got called on in and didn’t know the answer right away by glancing at the board. How was he supposed to know what the color blue represented in the chapter they had just read? It didn’t help that Peter had forgotten to do the readings, despite ‘having the entire weekend to read twenty pages’ as the teacher had said. 

Peter wasn’t expecting to see Venom right after school, he knew that the creature only came out at night, not just because that was the only time he’d seen it, but because there was no way anyone could miss that thing during the day. Ned tried to help him theorize what it could be, the top picks were: alien, demon, and sentient toxic waste. None of those narrowed down exactly where it was hiding during the day, so Peter knew he would have to try and stay out later. His curfew had him out after dark since the days were getting shorter, but he knew that it wasn’t likely that they would bump into each other a half an hour after sunset. 

Asking Aunt May outright wouldn’t work, she knew him too well, and even if she didn’t suspect why he wanted to stay out later, she didn’t like him going out late simply because of the more dangerous crimes. With a bit of research, he was able to find information about studying, and how it was more effective to do so during daylight hours. He got her to agree to a shift in his schedule, making it so he had Spider-Man duty after school, then came home early to study and ate dinner with her before going out for a second patrol. He didn’t ask to stay out later than he did on the weekends, and she made him promise to be home and in bed in time to get enough sleep (and not be late to school or fall asleep during class). The final rule was that if he was seen at another crime scene in which there was a death or highly dangerous weapons used, he would be banned from going out after dark _period_. 

He had Droney constantly searching as he fought crime himself, as expected there was a lot more of it after dark. Even after the monster problem was handled, Peter was going to stick to this new schedule. It was rarer for robberies to happen during the day than at night, and with the alien tech still popping up every so often security grilles didn’t stand a chance. He’d managed to stop two robberies before he got a message from the drone, saying it was pursuing the creature. Spider-Man didn’t run into any more crime on the way after Venom, which was good since he was having trouble catching up with it as it was. It wasn’t until Venom stopped that he actually made progress, ending up at the apartment building that it had gone into. As he scanned it for how many people were in it, his heart shot up into his throat as he saw it was an almost fully occupied residence. The distinctive shape of Venom was nowhere near them, instead being in a basement way too deep for a regular apartment building. It was also awfully crowded for a basement, and he could see the creature fighting with other detected hostiles. 

Droney had found a way into the secret basement, once Peter was inside it attached itself back onto his costume. “I wish I could give you a treat or something.” He said as he moved through the fallen enemies, none of them were seriously injured, looking like Venom had just barreled through them to get to whatever it was after. Peter webbed up the ones that were starting to regain consciousness for good measure. The sound of gunfire began to die down as Peter got closer to where they were fighting, and when he made it to the room, there were only three people still shooting. “Okay, you get pictures of the big guy from every angle. Include me in there when you can.” Droney detached again, staying out of sight as it moved to get photos of Venom. Peter could see through the drone that one of the three remaining men had been grabbed and used as a projectile to knock out one of the others while the last ran to hide. 

“Does it count as friendly fire if you’re the one being fired at your friend?” Spider-Man asked, landing on one of the many crates that would soon be confiscated. He was happy to see that no one had been killed, though he was sure there were at least a dozen concussions. “I see you decided to go easy on them today, big fella. What changed? Anger management classes? Worried about your karma? A hardworking police officer restored your faith in the justice system?”

**“They didn’t deserve to die.”**

“Wow. I couldn’t agree more.” He replied, the cheer in his tone hidden by the voice deepening program. Peter wondered if this thing _could_ be reasoned with. It hadn’t seriously attacked him yet, and now it was letting the kind of people it had killed before go. He didn’t really want to fight the thing, and the idea of turning the creature around to be a force for good sounded more appealing by the second. “How about you call it a day? Good job with finding these guys, I can catch the last one and call the police to do the rest. Maybe we can stop and get something to eat? I’m guessing you like meat. I have time before my curfe- my very, um, serious night job starts.” Venom moved to follow the fleeing man, and Peter went after him. “I don’t mean like a restaurant, you couldn’t go in those anyway... Not because of how you look! It’s just, you’re not wearing a shirt or shoes… are you? I know some good hot dog stands that stay open late. Or tomorrow if tonight doesn’t work for you. Just so we can get to know each other a bit. I don’t even know your name. Here, I’ll start: I’m Spider-Man, and you are…?” Venom didn’t answer, a tendril flying from it’s arm and snagging onto the bad guy’s back. “I told you! I’ve got this one! Geeze, how much of that stuff do you have?” 

**“No. This one _does_ deserve to die.”** Venom said, reeling the man in sharply as the tendril wrapped around his throat like a noose. 

“What?! No! Nobody deserves to die!” Spider-Man was going to charge the other but knew that it wouldn’t work. If he got stuck like before, there was nothing he could do to help the man, so he decided that projectiles were his best option. “Drop him!” He fired a couple webs at the monster’s arm and pulled hard, but just as the arm seemed to budge, Venom turned and snapped at the webs, severing them and sending Peter tumbling backward into a stack of weapons. His taser webs hadn’t worked, the web grenade wouldn’t free the criminal, and he couldn’t think of any other options that could stop the creature. There wasn’t any time to test the ones that might be effective, as he could hear the strangled man gasping for air. He knew that he had to use something, and with reluctance, he dug through the weapons he had crashed through. Bullets didn’t work, so he grabbed one of the higher tech ones. He picked up what appeared to be a large, laser gun, its opening not fit for bullets, and small enough that a huge beam wouldn’t be shooting out. 

“I said: drop him.” He hated how the gun felt in his hands, he could have lifted it with his pinkie but he could only describe its weight as heavy, “Now! Or I’ll- I’ll shoot!” It took him a moment to find the trigger, the finger on it trembling as his stomach turned at the feel of the mechanism. “Don’t make me.” If it weren’t for the interrogation voice, Venom would have been able to tell that he was begging. The creature did turn to look at him, but he could see the man being held was still weakening, and he knew he had to act before he died. Spider-Man had never planned to hit Venom, he fired a warning shot by aiming to the left of the creature, certain that he had given enough berth between it and the laser. It wasn’t a laser that came out, but a huge plume of fire as the flamethrower went off. Spider-Man’s eyes widened in shock as the flames went much wider than where he’d aimed, some of it hitting the creature. It shrieked, the blackness that made up its body writhing and shrinking away from the flames as it dropped the man and jumped away. 

Peter dropped the gun, putting his hands on his head, “Oh my god. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it did that!” Thankfully, it didn’t look like it had done permanent damage as it regained its smooth shape again. “You don’t like fire, huh?” It seemed obvious, now that he thought about it, fires and explosions were some of the top ways to kill aliens in movies, that also excluded Venom from being a demon, since those seemed to like fire. Even with this new piece of information, he didn’t pick up the flamethrower again, as there was no way he was going to use it again; he could seriously hurt the other if he wasn’t careful. Peter had been expecting to have to try and save the man who was now wheezing on the floor, but instead of ignoring him like usual, Venom went straight after the web-slinger. 

“Whoa!” He jumped back, narrowly dodging the attack by jumping backwards as Venom continued to pursue him, “Don’t be embarrassed! Not a lot of things can resist fire! I mean, if it was _water_ that hurt you, then it would be—” Peter cried out as claws tore through his suit, the slashes causing red to bloom as his newly exposed skin bled. The suit he’d been given wasn’t heavily armored, but it was enough to protect him against most attacks, and the fact that Venom had been able to tear through it meant that if he’d been in his old costume, he would probably have gotten a peek at his own organs. 

“Holy shit!” The creature hadn’t said a thing, only letting out snarls and roars as it came after him. The sight was terrifying, and he knew that if his Spider-sense was working on it that it would be going wild. He was having difficulty trying to dodge, as it was way faster than it had any right to be, and it kept hitting him from different angles. Peter managed to get a few hits in, but they didn’t do much as he was on the defense. When he went in to elbow it, the creature instead bit down on his arm, and he screamed as its teeth dug in, the pain becoming blinding when the creature shook him like a rag doll. Peter kicked its face with all his strength, causing it to let go of him and grip its mouth. When its hands moved away, he saw he’d knocked several of its teeth out and even shattered some. Before he could stutter out an apology, he watched as more teeth materialized from the black goo to take their place. It was then that he realized he was _definitely_ out of his league.

“Karen! Call Mr. St—Agh!” Venom rammed Peter, sending him flying through several crates until he hit the hard, concrete wall. 

“I am unable to find a Mr. Stag in your contacts. Would you like me to locate—” Karen’s voice cut out as Venom grabbed Spider-Man’s head and started smashing it into the wall. “Repairi- Repair- Rep-a-a-a-” Spider-Man kicked off the wall and body slammed Venom, Karen was only giving off gibberish now. 

“Karen!” he shouted in a warped voice, his voice modulator beginning to fail along with the program. Peter knew he’d seriously pissed this thing off, enough that it would follow him if he left, he turned and jumped away, planning to keep ahead until he was able to contact someone for help. He felt something secure around his ankle, and suddenly he was thrown to the ground hard. Peter raised his wrists, but before he could fire his webshooters his hands were plastered to the cold ground on either side of him, his feet getting the same treatment. He struggled to pull free, but the black substance held him fast. He froze as Venom landed over him, thankfully not _on_ him, but all Peter could see now was the blackness of the large creature as it loomed over him on all fours. 

**“You’ve gotten in our way for the last time, Spider.”** Despite the wide grin on its face, the creature sounded anything but amused. It gripped his head, only one large hand able to fit so as to hold it in place, Peter’s heart was beating like a rabbit’s as he felt the claws press into him. Venom’s tongue seemed to grow longer, and it wasn’t until he felt it wrapping around his neck that he unfroze, struggling again to get away. Then the monster’s mouth opened impossibly wide, its upper jaw curling up into its face and giving Peter a full view of every single tooth. Globs of saliva dripped onto his face as the mouth moved toward him, he realized with a cracked sob that it was going to eat him. He tried to turn away from the horrible sight, but it’s hand and tongue kept him from moving his head an inch; it wanted him to _watch_.

“ _Please_ ,” Peter found his voice again, realizing how pathetic it sounded, not only was he crying, but the interrogation mode voice had shut off along with Karen. “don’t eat me! _Please!_ I don’t want to--“ He hiccupped, a shudder going throughout his body, the teen was so terrified that he didn’t notice that Venom had froze. He still struggled and managed to turn his head away as the other’s grip weakened, closing his eyes tight. 

Suddenly, all contact with the creature ceased, its tongue and hand withdrew, its panting breath and hot drool no longer assaulting his face, and even more than that, whatever was binding him to the floor came off as well. Peter jumped up as soon as he was free, ignoring the protests from his battered body he got into a defensive position. Venom had already made it across the room and was standing straighter than Peter had seen, the creature had always been at least slightly hunched when he saw it, but what really got him was the facial expression. The eyes were incredibly wide, literally the size of saucers, and its mouth was much smaller, though far too many teeth still stuck out, it wasn’t smiling anymore. It stared at him for a long while before running off, not even bothering with the man it had been trying to kill just minutes before. 

Peter fell to the ground, gasping, he webbed up the wounds to stop the bleeding and tried to calm himself down. He heard a soft voice, a familiar one, and it wasn’t until Droney came and prodded at him that he came out of his fear induced haze. 

“Peter, the ETA of police enforcement is two minutes, I suggest you allow the paramedics to assess your injuries.” 

“Karen?! I thought… I thought you were dead!” 

“I am not alive, therefore I cannot be dead. If you are referring to my silence, that was caused by damage that has now since been repaired.”

“Oh... well, I'm glad you're okay. I just need to get home to Aunt May, can you map out the shortest, easiest, and least authority-filled route for me?”

“Thank you, Peter. And of course. Is there anything else you need besides medical attention?”

“Yeah… call Happy. I need to talk to Mr. Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next...  
> the aftermath.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to say that there will be no spoilers for this fic for at least a few updates! I want to give people time to see the new Venom movie first, and I'll add a tag when there are spoilers. (I definitely recommend seeing it! I've seen it twice already!)  
> Secondly, holy smokes! This really blew up! I'm so excited to see so many new readers, comments, and bookmarks!n I'm honored you all like my fic!  
> Thanks so much for reading and your support! \o/

The symbiote couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with its host. It knew that it had to do with the Spider-Man, but it didn’t know exactly what part was causing Eddie so much distress. It felt fear, anger, guilt—too many negative emotions to keep track of. Despite its constant questioning, Eddie hadn’t answered at all, so once the man had gotten them into a secluded space (a subway station bathroom) and locked the door, the symbiote materialized itself to voice its concerns aloud. 

“ **Talk to me, Eddie.** ” The man didn’t answer, only pacing back and forth with his head in his hands. “ **What’s wrong? Are you hurt?** ” The symbiote knew for a fact that he wasn’t physically hurt, but the fire had shaken his host more than he thought. They had taken much worse, even had flames hit them directly, ending in burns that the symbiote had to heal for the man, but this had barely singed them. Still, Eddie had fled with a feeling that could only be called panic, and he seemed on the verge of the mental attack named after the feeling. 

“ **Don’t worry, Eddie.** ” The symbiote nuzzled the side of his face, “ **I will find Spider-Man and kill him. He won’t hurt us again.** ” They should have killed him when they had the chance, no doubt he would tell someone else of their weakness, and the symbiote would have torn Eddie a new one for letting an enemy run off with that information if the man weren’t already so distraught. 

“No! Don’t even think about touching him!” Eddie snapped suddenly, his words only confusing the symbiote more. “Jesus! Didn’t you hear his voice?”

“ **Yes… Do you know him?** ” It would make sense that Eddie was upset about attacking someone he knew, but the symbiote would have recognized the voice as well if that was the case. It wondered if Spider-Man was someone important they would get in trouble for killing. 

“Are you serious?” Eddie’s agitation was bleeding into the symbiote, which was getting tired of being scolded for no reason. Instead of responding, it only sneered at him, waiting for an explanation. “That was a _kid_!”

The symbiote shrunk down a bit, its tooth filled mouth disappearing as it processed what the man had revealed. It knew that there was a great difference between human and symbiote children, one took years to gain the proper coordination needed to be a threat while the other was an apex predator upon spawning. The symbiote had never tried or even wanted to harm them; they were weak, foolish, and puny humans that hurt themselves more than they did others. Someone had begun knocking at the restroom door, but they both ignored the sound. 

“ **Spider-Man is not a child.** ”

“You _heard_ him! You saw how tiny he was! God, he even _acted_ like a kid. How’d I take so long to figure it out? And what the _hell_ makes you think he isn’t?”

“ **He is powerful, close to as strong as us, and he can fight. He is not named ‘Spider-Child’.** ”

“That doesn’t matter! It sounded like he was _twelve_. And we… we _bit_ him.” The symbiote felt the meager contents of Eddies stomach roiling, and it clamped down on his esophagus. 

“ **If you vomit, I am going to make you eat it.** ” 

“We should have taken him up on his offer to grab some food.” The man said wryly, the wrenching sadness and regret ringing through the symbiote almost painfully. 

“ **We should have made _him_ into food.** ” 

“No! _No!_ How many times do I have to say _no_?!" Eddie was filled with a specific kind of frustration, one that the symbiote knew very well, the man felt this way whenever he was failing to explain something. “I don’t care if he’s got super powers or a super suit or whatever, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s a tween.” The knocking on the door had started up again, but now the person on the other side was pounding on it. 

“What the hell are you doing in there?!” 

“ ** _OCCUPIED!_** ” Venom roared, the sound of knocking replaced by fleeing footsteps. The symbiote growled, still not understanding how Eddie could think of someone that could take on several armed men alone as a _child_.

“We are not going to hurt him. _You_ are not even allowed to flick him.” The symbiote gave Eddie a flick with one of its tendrils. “It doesn’t matter what _you_ think the definition of kid is. If we harm a child, that makes us the bad guys. Are we the bad guys?”

“ **…No.** ”

“Right. So we do not, under any circumstances, try and hurt Spider-Man.”

“ **What if he hurts _us_?** ”

“Are you going to let a kid say he hurt us? Do you think that Spider-Man can beat us up?” The symbiote’s doubtful huff was enough of an answer for Eddie. “If he tries something, I can handle it without using dismemberment.” The man went over to the door, the symbiote flowing back inside him as they left the restroom. Eddie felt guilty again, but this time the symbiote knew it was because he had gotten so mad at it. “You can eat _one_ rat. But keep it out of my mouth.”

**Can I eat an alligator if we find one?**

“There aren’t any gators in the sewers, those are just myths.”

 **Your colleagues seem to think differently.** Venom’s mocking laugh reverberated in his head. 

“That’s a low blow. Keep that up and my next story’s gonna be about an ugly black slime that crawls out of toilets to eat babies.”

 **Change it to _handsome_ black slime if you want to make it believable.**

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anything good had come out of the disastrous night, it was that Peter had managed to clear his name. Droney had gotten a good picture of him fighting Venom, the monster’s black webbing easily identifiable as the same thing as what was found on the bodies. Jameson had only paid him half for the picture (since it was the opposite of what he asked for), and the Daily Bugle writers managed to warp the story; Spider-Man may not have killed those people, but it seemed clear from the image that he was partially to blame for attracting the new villain to New York. 

Droney had taken many more pictures, ones that Jameson would pay handsomely for, but Peter didn’t even want to look at them himself. Peter had only felt the teeth dig into him, and seeing how deep those vicious fangs had gone in high definition made his chest tighten uncomfortably. He almost deleted them as soon as he saw them, but instead he had sent them to Happy to look over, and had Karen keep them in a secured file. There was no way he was going to let Aunt May see any of those photos, he thought that the attack had freaked _him_ out, but when he got home and May saw him, he thought that _she_ might have to go to the hospital from having a heart attack. Karen had been able to assess his injuries and tell him that it would heal on its own thanks to his accelerated healing. The suit wasn’t so lucky, even though Karen had repaired herself she couldn’t repair the tears in it on her own. When his injuries weren’t completely healed by the next day, May made him stay home from school and told him no Spider-Man duties today in case he reopens something. She was acting overprotective again but wasn’t even mad at him for going after the creature when he’d been told not to. Peter was sure he wouldn’t get so lucky with Mr. Stark and was anxiously awaiting a message from him. 

Karen alerted him when he got an incoming message, which surprised Peter as he’d thought that it would come through Happy via his cellphone. It told him to go to the roof, which Peter rushed to do, opening up his window to get out onto the fire escape, “I’m going to the roof, May!” he shouted to her before climbing out of his window. 

“Do you want a ride- Wait, _where_?” 

He made sure that no one would see him before scaling up the outside wall, not bothering to peer over the edge before he launched himself onto the roof. He was met with the judgmental stare of the Iron Man mask. Peter knew it didn’t have facial expressions, but he swore it looked different depending on Mr. Stark’s mood. Since he wasn’t in flight, he was able to cross the suit’s arms as he stared down the boy, making him fidget a bit. 

“I’m… I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I know you told me not to go near that thing, but…” 

“Finish that sentence. I’m going to need a damn good reason for you trying to fight it on your own.” 

“Fight? No! I wasn’t trying to fight it! I was just trying to get a picture of it, I needed to prove that Spider-Man wasn’t killing people! I know… I know that you said you were going to handle it, but I thought I could make it easy for you. I _never_ wanted to fight it, but it was hurting someone, and I tried to stop it, then it attacked me and—”

“Slow down, kid! Don’t get hysterical on me.” Peter had been hoping that Tony had come all the way here to talk to him, but he knew that it wasn’t true when the empty suit came over and gave him an awkward pat on the back (though it wouldn’t have felt any less awkward if he’d done it while out of the suit). 

“Are you going to take my suit away again?” Peter asked anxiously, looking down at his feet.

“I’m not here to take the suit.” Peter looked up, his eyes brightening. “You learned your lesson.” He saw the other was looking at the bandages on his arm, which were completely pristine because of how many times Aunt May had insisted on changing them. “But I need you to seriously stay away from that monster, it’s dangerous.” 

“Were you able to find any info on it?” 

“No.” The answer took a few moments to come out, which immediately clued Peter in on the fact that Mr. Stark wasn’t telling the truth. Before he could try and question him, the door to the roof opened and a flustered looking Aunt May came up to Peter.  
“We have stairs, Peter.” She took his injured arm gently, worried he had damaged it by climbing up here. “And you didn’t even put on shoes!” Peter looked down at his bare feet and the dirty roof around it. 

“Hi, May. You’re looking good.” Peter knew May didn’t have the best opinion of Tony Stark, especially after finding out that he had encouraged Peter to be Spider-Man and bring him to a super hero fight. They hadn’t spoken since she had given him a piece of her mind about the whole ‘Stark Internship’. Strangely enough, she looked genuinely happy to see him.

“Thank God you’re here.” May took Peter’s hand, “He’s a professional, he’ll catch this monster before you even go out on patrol again.”

“Actually _I’m_ not going after it. I’m not physically here, for starters.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I’ve got some really good guys working on it, I mean some of the _best_ are already working to capture this thing.”

“Really?” May stepped between Peter and Tony, “Better than you?” She didn’t give the man a chance to respond. “That thing almost _killed_ Peter, and you’re just going to sit back and wait for somebody else to try and catch it?” 

“It’s out of my hands. I can’t just fly off and fight whoever I want anymore, May, there are _protocols_.This doesn’t qualify as an Avenger-level emergency.” 

“It’s Mrs. Parker. And if you’re not going to do anything, give me a suit and I’ll take care of it myself.” A mechanical sigh came out of the suit as it turned to leave. 

“Stay safe, kid.” Tony said before taking off

“Jerk!” May let out a frustrated sound before breathing in deeply. She put her hand on Peter’s shoulder, leading him to the roof access door. “I’m sure that he’s telling the truth, but… I’d feel a lot better if he was the one leading the team.” 

“Me too.” Peter agreed. He went straight to his room when they got back into the apartment, and was just in time to see several small bots flying out of his window. His suit had been moved, and when he picked it up he saw that all the damage had been repaired. He pulled the mask over his face and flopped down onto his bed. “Karen, could you bring up the last ten photos that Droney took?” Peter flipped back and forth through the photos, watching as the creature froze and retreated from him. He tried to figure out what made it stop, but the photos weren’t giving him any insight into what made it spare him.  
\------------------------------------------------------

The next two weeks were entirely uneventful, which was in part because May wasn’t letting him out after dark now. He could tell that she was starting to loosen up again, as the news of the creature being spotted were incredibly sparse, and the reports were all far off from Queens, like it had finished its business in the neighborhood and moved onto the next. That didn’t keep Peter from having nightmares of it whenever he slept, and he eagerly awaited the text that said it had been neutralized.  
Peter came home directly after school, hoping to try his luck with Aunt May and see if she would be alright with him staying out a bit after dark. He was feeling a bit braver now that the monster wasn't around, and he knew that he could make a bigger difference fighting crime at night. He’d spent the writing period in his literature class coming up with another speech to get her to let him stay out late again. 

“I’m home, May!” he called out, walking into the living room to see that May wasn’t alone. There was a man sitting on the couch across from her, and as Peter came in he turned to see him. He looked incredibly tired, with bags under his eyes so big he wondered if he ever slept, his sweatshirt was well worn and frayed a bit at the edges, but it didn’t hide the large muscles hidden beneath the somewhat baggy clothes. The guy was obviously hungry, as the plate May had made for him was almost empty. Her herbal blue cheese spread was pretty tasty, but her homemade extra crispy pita chips got their name because every single one of them at least had a bit of black on them from being burnt. Peter was trying to figure out why Aunt May had invited a strange, homeless man into their apartment when she’d scolded him for doing the same thing when he was younger when the man addressed him. 

“Hey, Peter, I’ve been looking forward to finally meeting you.”

Before Peter could even begin to ask questions, he saw movement near the man’s shoulder, out of May’s sight. There were at least half a dozen crackers piled on top of one another, held together by large globs of blue cheese spread, and he saw a tiny pair of clawed hands holding onto the food, followed by a serpentine head that eyed Peter. It was incredibly small now, only about as big as a water hose, but there was no mistaking what it was. The blackness of its body and those white bulbous eyes had become the background of his nightmares, its jaw unhinged to reveal miniscule versions of the teeth that had torn into him, and it shoved the stack of crackers and spread into its mouth. 

“Oh, _shit_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa! I was going to make this longer, but so many people wanted to see what happened next! So I'm saving what else I was going to put for the next chapter.  
> Thanks again for reading and so many comments bookmarks aaah. ;o;

After his expletive, he could only stare dumbly at the scene before him, May’s mouth was wide open after hearing what Peter had said, the man’s eyebrows were both raised, and the creature on his back looked back and forth frantically with a full mouth before regurgitating the half chewed food and a copious amount of saliva into his hoodie, clearly not liking the snacks as much as the man it was attached to. 

“Peter!” Aunt May said once she’d gotten over her own shock at Peter’s rudeness, “Apologize right now!” 

“No, it’s fine. That’s a pretty normal reaction. I know you didn’t want your aunt to hear about this, but I didn’t feel comfortable working with you until I got her permission first.” Peter was totally flabbergasted and was wondering if he was having another nightmare on account of the bizarreness of it all. There was no way the thing that had tried to kill him just came in here to get his aunt to give the okay on them being a team, which is exactly what seemed to be going on. The only explanation for Aunt May being so calm would be that she poisoned the cheese and crackers, but even then she would have moved between him and the creature. 

“When were you going to tell me about this, Peter?” May asked, holding up a sheet of paper, “Were you going to wait until _after_ your final grades came out?” Peter got a look at the _D_ drawn and circled in red and recognized his English paper. “I know how important your… internship is, but I told you that you need to stay focused in school. I read this, Peter, it’s _really_ bad.” 

“It’s terrible.” The man agreed, “But he’s got the basics. Good grammar, no spelling mistakes, he can differentiate between ‘their’, ‘they’re’, and ‘there’. You’d be surprised at how many high school kids struggle with that. With a bit of tutoring, he’ll be getting full points in no time.” 

Peter finally figured out what was going on, and that he had better play along or things could get ugly. “Right! Good to finally meet you too, Mr…”

“I told you to call me Eddie. He’s formal for his age. You raised a real polite kid.” 

“Unfortunately, he also picked up some colorful language from me too.” May laughed, Eddie let out a chuckle of his own. Peter still didn’t know exactly what this guy and that creature on him were doing here, but he did know one thing: he had to get them out of the apartment and away from Aunt May. 

“We were, uh, going to go to the library to study.” He said quickly, glad when the man didn’t object but instead got up and shook May’s hand. 

“It was a pleasure to meet you, May. Hopefully I’ll be seeing you again soon.” The creature had disappeared, so when he turned to leave his aunt wasn’t able to see it.

As soon as they left the apartment, Peter’s stance changed, his body tightening up in anticipation of an attack. The man’s didn’t change at all, he looked as aloof as he had before, leaning against the side of the elevator when they got in. Peter knew he wouldn’t have a chance to change into his Spider-Man costume, as soon as the other saw what he was doing it would attack him. He reached into his backpack still, grabbing one of his own web shooters slowly as he watched the man. 

“Your aunt’s really nice.” The comment was innocent enough, but it made Peter’s stomach sink. This thing knew who he was, it knew where he lived, it knew about Aunt May and could easily use her as leverage. Peter feared the monster, but at this moment he only felt a white-hot rage toward it. He sealed the elevator doors shut with his webbing before grabbing Eddie by the front of his sweatshirt, lifting him and slamming his back against the wall of the elevator. 

“Don’t you dare! If you even _think_ about hurting her, I’ll--! I’ll--!” Peter didn’t know _what_ he would do. This was the first time Aunt May had ever been threatened because of him being Spider-Man. The only harm he thought would come to her because of it was if he got hurt or killed himself, not from a villain using her to get to him. Black goo started to spread across the man, dark veins of it creeping up onto his face.

“Whoa! Just calm down. There’s no need for that, we don’t need to do that.” At first Peter thought the man was talking to him, but the second part didn’t make sense. The spreading blackness receded again, but Peter still didn’t let him go. “We didn’t come here to hurt you, or your aunt. We came to apologize to you and make sure that you’re alright.” 

“Well, I’m doing as good as I can be considering what happened. And apology _not_ accepted.” Peter let him go, taking a step back and glowering at him. “How did you even find me?” he asked, praying he wouldn’t get an ominous ‘I have my ways’ answer. 

“Definitely not just a suit.” Eddie said as to Peter’s strength. “We followed you.”

“You… you _followed_ me? That’s impossible!” Peter had been followed many times, by bad guys and adoring fans alike that wanted to find out his identity (the adoring fans were almost exclusively made up of reporters that wanted to make the front page, but fans sounded better) and his spider-sense always warned him if he tried to take his mask off or lead anyone toward his apartment. It happened with anyone that was a threat, which was why it hadn’t gone off when Ned or May had been about to see he was Spider-Man, and this guy was _definitely_ a threat. Belatedly, he realized it had to do with the fact that the creature hadn’t set off his spider-sense. “And that paper! How did you get that? I threw it away!” His eyes narrowed. “Did… did you go through my garbage.”

“Yeah.” Eddie answered without missing a beat. 

“Following people without their permission and going through their garbage is stalking, you know that? You’re a stalker.”

“We had to find you before we could apologize, and I couldn’t think of a better way.” Eddie frowned, tilting his head as if he were listening to something. “No, chasing him down and grabbing him would have freaked him out more!”

“You didn’t have to apologize! This is worse than an apology! You should have just left me alone! Or if you were _really_ sorry, you should have gone to the cops! But now you brought that thing into my house!” 

“We were just going to leave you alone! But you stopped showing up at night, and we… we knew that you weren’t coming out ‘cause you were afraid to run into us again.” 

“That monster tried to _eat_ me! I wasn’t going to give it a chance to do it again!”

“ _We_ weren’t going to eat you.” 

“Then what was it doing? Trying to kiss me?” 

“No!” Eddie made a face, “We were just… going to bite your head off… not _eat_ it.” The man’s expression made it obvious that he realized that it didn’t sound any better when put that way.

“Oh, that’s great. It was just going to bite off my head as a _warning_.” Peter tried to spot the creature, but it had hidden itself away. “Who are you anyway? Why are you carrying that thing around, and why is it so small now?” Before Eddie could answer, he asked several more questions. “Does sunlight hurt it? Does it shrink and hide it in your clothes until night? Is it a space vampire? Is that why it looks like a leech during the day?”

“One question at a time! … You do _not_ want to know what a leech is.” Eddie looked like he was struggling to think. “I’m Eddie Brock and I’m its host. It's inside of me right now. And it’s not a vampire.”

“Brock? Like… from Pokémon?” He was going to say he should think up a better fake name, but his next words were troubling. “It lives in you?” Peter’s eyes went wide, and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for Eddie, “Is it like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_? Or is it going to pop out of you like in _Alien_?” 

“You watch way too much tv, kid.” Eddie scratched the back of his head, “And it’s more like _The Thing_ , actually.” Peter paled at that, remembering his attempt to watch it with Ned and them having to get Aunt May to turn it off because they were both too scared to look at the screen anymore. He must have looked more frightened than he thought, because Eddie tried to comfort him. “It’s not _as_ bad as that. We didn’t come here just to freak you out more.”

“How does it work?” Peter blurted out, “Does it wrap you up in a cocoon at night and come back for you in the morning? Or do you switch control and get stuck in its body while it’s running around doing stuff? How does it get in your body? Where does it _go_ in your body? Are all those bracelets you’re wearing containment technology?”

“Before I answer any of your questions, you need to answer one of mine. Did you tell anyone about the fire thing?”

“…Yes.” Peter wasn’t going to bother trying to lie to Eddie, as he was sure he wouldn't believe he'd kept it to himself. “I told Mr. Stark about it.” He did decide to omit the fact there were people trying to hunt the creature down, though. 

“Alright.” Eddie put his hands in his pockets, and Peter didn’t detect any anger from him or the creature as it stayed hidden. “I’m not going to tell you anything else about us.” 

“What?! But I answered your question!” 

“We don’t need you telling your boss everything about us. Is it even legal for you to be working for him?” 

“I don’t… I’m an intern.” Peter thought that sounded lame, so he added another title: “And a reserve Avenger.” 

“Oh, wow. What are you interning to be? A government thug?”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?!” Peter bristled, ready to argue with the other, but Eddie just went up to the elevator door, looking at the webbing. The doors hadn’t budged, but the elevator had been going up and down, meaning there were a bunch of very annoyed tenants. 

“You seem smart, ‘cept your writing, you’ll figure it out.”

“My writing is not that bad! I can’t believe you showed that to my aunt!” 

“You used ‘and’ five times in the same sentence.” Eddie poked at the webbing, getting his finger stuck to it. He used his free hand to press the button for the lobby. “We’ve got places to be. Can you get this off of the door so we can go?”

“No.” Peter said in a firm tone, surprised that his trepidation wasn’t obvious in his voice. “Answer my questions, then you get to leave.” He also planned on contacting Mr. Stark, even if he wouldn’t come here himself, he’d be able to tell whoever was after Venom where to find them. Before he could think of how to do that discreetly, the creature came out of Eddie’s back again, and he was able to see it seep through his clothing like turbid water. He backed away as far as he could, because the thing was _huge_ now and seemed to be glaring at him. Unlike its more humanoid form, there didn’t seem to be lips on it, its gums and all its teeth were in plain sight, and he could even see an undulating tongue beyond the fangs. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it turned away from him and bit into the webbing on the door. It tore it off and chewed it like gum, enough saliva dripping to the ground to warrant a wet floor sign. It spat the wet glob at Peter, which stuck his hand to the wall just as the door opened and the symbiote sunk back into Eddie. 

“Hopefully, we won’t be seeing you again soon.” The man said as he walked out, the webbing keeping Peter from following, though its integrity was severely damaged and he could already feel it pulling away. 

“Wait!” Peter called out, making the man stop and look back. “It’s supposed to rain, so you should put your hood on.” He turned back around, pulling his hood on, and Peter was able to see him freeze and his shoulders stiffen right before the doors closed, knowing that the chewed up food had ended up down the back of his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: they do see each other again soon  
> More art from Peter next chapter as well!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all of you for reading! I've been pretty busy, but I plan on responding to your comments! I'm so happy and shocked to get so many!

There was no use trying to follow Eddie, the man had totally vanished by the time Peter made it out of the apartment. The only trace of him being a pile of masticated snacks left on the sidewalk, and a few pigeons were already disposing of the evidence. Peter’s first instinct was to text Happy about the encounter, but he realized that it was too risky. What if they couldn’t find or catch the man and he realized Peter had ratted him out? He hadn’t told him to keep his identity a secret, but it could be some kind of test. Eddie could then use what he knew about Peter to get him back for it. He _had_ to get more information before deciding what to do; Aunt May could get hurt if he messed up. Peter went to the library, just so he wouldn’t be totally lying to her when he got back and tried editing the paper on his own. He hadn’t proofread it after finishing, so there were plenty of mistakes for him to mark up. He texted back and forth with Ned, thinking it was important that his friend knew about the encounter because he could be in danger too (and he needed someone to talk about this with). Peter hadn’t been able to take any pictures of Eddie or the creature when it was small, so he sent Ned another picture he drew. His friend sent the image back with several things written on it: 

He had brought up a good point, Peter didn’t know if Eddie _was_ alright. He didn’t look good, and even if he had that wouldn’t change the fact that he had a freaky monster living inside of him. It could be threatening him and making him do what it said, or worse it had burrowed its way into his brain and was controlling him like a big meat puppet. Before he figured out how to beat this thing, he had to know what the deal with Eddie was. Peter patrolled for a while before he came home, and it was nearly dark by then. Since she thought he had spent a good amount of time studying with Eddie, May had agreed to let him out after dark. Peter felt a bit guilty about tricking her, but it was worth it to keep her safe. 

While he had been able to catch a couple of crooks, his main focus was again on finding the elusive creature. It didn’t take too long now that Droney had gotten a good scan of it, the machine was much better at discerning it from the rest of the scenery. Unlike before, it didn’t seem to have a set destination in mind, and Peter easily followed behind it to observe. It seemed to be trying to find a trail, crawling around on the ground and huffing the air, its tongue flicking around wildly. There were several times in which it would seem like it was about to cross paths with a random citizen, but it always veered away from confrontation with anyone. After a few minutes, it came up to the roofs, making it so Peter had to be more cautious about not being spotted. He wondered what it could be tracking, as it would be difficult and time consuming for humans to move from one roof to another. The creature slowed down before stopping near the edge of a roof, Peter peeked over the small water tower he was clinging to, ready to duck out of sight if the other turned in his direction. 

**“We can see you.”** Peter yelped in surprise, if it weren’t for his adhesive palms he would have slipped off it. It must have seen him following it, or it literally had eyes on the back of its head. Spider-Man fully moved into view when it turned around, but he stayed on top of the water tower. Even if Eddie had been sincere when he said he wasn’t going to hurt him, Peter hadn’t heard any such promises from the being before him. 

“Where’s Eddie?” he asked, getting straight to what he wanted to know. 

**“Eddie is here.”**

“Where? I don’t see him. I haven’t seen him at all tonight.” 

**“Here.”** It put his hands on its chest and stomach, and Peter’s eyes widened as he gasped. 

“You ate him?!” Peter was frozen, unsure what he was supposed to do. _Oh, God._ There wasn’t anything he could do for the man now, and from the way it was looking at him, the creature might just decide to eat him too. Before he could attempt to flee, call someone, scream, or all of the above, the monster’s mouth opened. It peeled back, teeth splayed out, its tongue receding and disappearing. Peter spotted a familiar face deep within the mouth, and he didn’t give it a second thought as he fired webbing at it. When his web connected with Eddie’s face, he stuck his feet to the water tower, grabbing the webbing with both hands and tugging as hard as he could. 

“ _Ow!_ ” The very human sounding voice gave Peter hope, but the mouth closed again, the teeth snapping through the webbing. He jumped off of the tower, planning to do whatever it took to free the human from the monster, but stopped short as it started to shrink. The blackness melted away, leaving behind Eddie, who was squinting because of the webbing still stuck to his face. “What the hell are you doing?!” 

“Saving you?!” 

“From what! Having to pay for a facial wax?” Eddie winced as he tugged at the webbing on him, Peter knew it had to feel tender considering how hard he had tugged it himself. Before he could offer to get the webbing off, the creature surged out of Eddie, its tongue swirling over his face to clean off the webs. 

“I thought it ate you!” It looked like it was trying to do that now, but it stopped licking him once he was clean. Of webbing, at least, Eddie had to wipe his eyes to see through the coating of spit on his eyelids, flicking it off his hands. 

“He doesn’t _eat_ me, I wear him. Or he wears me. We both wear each other at the same time.” Peter could tell that Eddie had never actually explained this to someone, “Actually, I’m more like a mobile home for him.”

“How does that work? I mean, what’s the actual science behind it?” Peter couldn’t figure out exactly how the two were coexisting, and Eddie’s metaphors weren’t helping at all. “And why does it have to be night for it to cover you up? Do UV rays make it disintegrate?”

“It’s a kind of symbiosis.” Peter didn’t consider that an answer at all, but he figured that Eddie was still going to keep information from him. “Night has nothing to do with when we can do this.”

“Then why are you two only like this at night?” Peter took several quick steps backward as Eddie was engulfed in black sludge again, the process happening far too quickly for such a dramatic change. Venom stepped after him and he kept moving back, “I can tell you two are really close, but a lot of people like a bit more personal space.” His spider-sense went off for something behind him, but it was only a slight danger, and he was going to trust his eyes on this one for what was the more serious threat. His heel caught on the edge of a raised part of the roof, and he fell backwards, landing on his butt. Venom crouched down, keeping a foot’s distance between them, which still felt too close but was much better than getting drooled on. 

**“We are too visible during the day, and people get scared when they see us.”**

“Uhm, yeah, I can… I can see where they’d be coming from.” 

**“ _You_ are scared when you see us.”** Peter curled his fists against the roof his palms were pressed against, wanting to deny feeling that way despite how obvious it was. **“We promise that we will not hurt you again, but you need to understand that what we are doing does not concern you. Stop following us, little spider, or you could get hurt by someone else.”** The creature’s words were reassuring, mainly because if it did want to hurt him it already could have done so. Peter was much less happy about their warning, though. They were keeping something from him, and the obvious reason seemed to be the fact that he was still a teenager. 

“I’m not little.” Peter frowned, hearing a strange rumbling sound coming from their throat, realizing after a moment that it was chuckling at him. “You’re just freakishly big! And this is my city! You can’t tell me there’s something going on and expect me to ignore it!” 

**“ _We_ will handle this. If you try and follow, we will stop you.”** Peter squinted his eyes, weighing his next words very carefully before he risked saying them.

“If you aren’t going to hurt me… how are you supposed to keep me from doing whatever I want?”

**“We don’t need to hurt you to stop you.”** A pair of small globs shot from the creature’s arms without it even moving and secured Peter’s hands to where he was seated. Peter tried to get up but found he could only sit or squat awkwardly because of how his hands were stuck. Venom stood up and started walking away, and Peter realized how long he would be trapped here given the amount of time it took for the substance to deteriorate before.

“Wait! I’ll miss my curfew!” Peter called out to the other as he struggled to get free of the bonds, “She won’t let me stay out late anymore!” Venom looked at him, their grin growing larger as their eyes turned upward in a gleeful expression. 

**“ _Good._ You shouldn’t be up past your bedtime. Look how cranky it makes you.”** They jumped off the roof, leaving the seething teen stuck to it. 

“Karen, do we have… flamethrower webs?” That didn’t sound safe or possible, but he’d been surprised by other things the suit had.

“No, but I could call for assistance.”

“Please don’t do that.” He didn’t want anyone to see him like this and considered it a small blessing that he had been stuck to a roof instead of a sidewalk. He’d never been able to test how strong the adhesive substance was before, and there wasn't anything else for him to do except try and tear it off of him. He planted his feet and pulled hard against the slime, surprised when he actually felt a bit of give as he started to shift forward. “Almost… there…” Peter stumbled forward as he broke free from the roof, shocked at quickly he had freed himself.

“Yes!” He threw his hands in the air, only to see that he hadn’t pulled off the substance, rather he had torn off part of the roof. He looked back at where he had been, seeing that the two chunks had clearly been ripped from it. “Oops.” He looked at the slabs on his hands, which were secured just as well as they had been while they were still on the roof. 

“Karen, are we able to make it home in time if we walk?” Even if his web shooters weren’t clogged by the black gunk, it wouldn’t be safe to swing while he couldn’t use his hands. He considered taking off the lower part of his suit since that's what the concrete was glued to, but he would rather not be seen jumping from roof to roof half naked. 

“No. But it is possible if you run.” Peter was thankful for the fire escape and that his powers made it easier to balance while running through the streets with two blocks of stone on his hands.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
This wasn’t the last time Peter saw the two, as May was letting him stay out late to make up for the time she thought he spent studying with Eddie. She’d been disappointed about the man not visiting more, but Peter told her that he was too busy to come walk him to the library every day. 

He used the time she thought he was studying to patrol, for even though he was out late at night too, he didn’t get nearly as much Spider-Man duty done. That was on account of Venom and not because Peter was spending all his time following them around, but because of what they did whenever they caught him doing it. He’d gotten himself stuck to something nearly every night, which Venom had begun to refer to as “putting him in a time-out”. It ranged from just securing one of his limbs to putting him in a full cocoon with just his head sticking out. Once they’d asked what train he usually took home and strapped him to it (which had _not_ been helpful as the train had passed his stop a couple times before he was able to free himself from the binds). He’d actually been late coming home once or twice, but he’d been smart enough to call May ahead of time to say he was going to be late because of a criminal. She would never ask him to ignore someone in need just to be back in time after all. 

Peter had only seen Eddie once during the day, and it had been when he actually had gone to the library like he’d told May he was. The man was on the computer and had several totally unrelated videos open and playing at the same time, and despite pulling up a video when Peter had tapped his shoulder, remained totally unresponsive. He tried shaking him, but another library patron threatened to get him kicked out if he didn’t wait quietly for a turn on the computer. He’d idled around the library to allow time for the man to finish, keeping an eye on the front door, but he’d exited some other way without Peter spotting him. Afterward, he went on patrol, trying to get rid of his frustration for the man and his alien. They’d kept their word about not harming him, but otherwise they were absolutely infuriating. He hated being treated like a kid, and despite all the time he spent tailing the two, he wasn’t any closer to finding out exactly what they were doing in New York. 

“Karen, you think I’m mature, right?” he asked as he swung into the alley he had left his backpack in. 

“No. You will not reach physical maturity until—”

“I meant… emotionally mature.” Peter corrected, taking off the lower part of his suit and putting on his regular clothes. 

“I do not know how to measure emotional maturity, Peter, but I do believe that you are quite mature.” Peter beamed within the mask, “For your age.” She added, and Peter didn’t hesitate to pull his mask off without saying goodbye to her. He straightened out his hair and put it away with his suit, turning his head a bit as he tried to fix his helmet hair from the mask. He strolled out of the alleyway, not even bothering to look behind him, and not noticing the strange man that had watched him change from Spider-Man to Peter Parker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't have a cliffhanger in the last chapter, sorry about that!  
> I made sure to have one in this one for you :J  
> Eddie's POV coming back next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa! been super busy! Hopefully things will calm down next week!  
> I grow stronger with every new comment. @w@  
> (also, a thank you to PaperLights for helping me figure out tags!)

Persistence was one of the key traits Eddie described himself as having, and he had yet to find anyone that disagreed. There were plenty of people that used a different word for it, words like _stubborn_ , _bullheaded_ , and other endearing terms. It wasn’t until now that he could see where they were coming from, as he found himself describing Peter using those very same words. The kid didn’t know when to quit, the pair had seen him just about every night, and with each meeting he became less wary of them. Eddie was glad that he wasn’t freaked out like before, but he was not happy about him being comfortable enough to think they could team up. No matter what they said or where they left him, he always came back even more enthused about joining their patrol. The kid could have written a resume with a cover letter included with all the reasons he’d given Venom as to why he should be allowed to tag along. He’d also made a few attempts to track them by sticking little bugs onto the symbiote which the creature did _not_ appreciate. 

The symbiote’s dislike for Peter increased with every meeting that they had, saying that he was wasting their time and that Eddie was being far too nice. The man didn’t care whether it liked the kid or not, it didn’t want to kill him and that’s what was important. It kept demanding payment for its good behavior, though, asking for different kinds of treats, extra computer time, and the occasional live prey. The man wasn’t nearly as adept at reading the symbiote as it was him, but even he knew that it felt no desire to eat the kid no matter how many times it threatened to. Still, he tried to give it what it asked for as encouragement and knew there was no risk for Peter if he didn’t meet its often ludicrous demands (it would throw a tantrum no matter what if he got his coffee without paying for ten extra pumps of mocha). 

Eddie was surprised when the symbiote woke him up while the library was still open. It normally relished its time on the internet, and only purposely woke him up when the computers shut down automatically near closing. He felt its agitation before it spoke to him, so he knew there had to be something wrong. 

**The brat was here. He tried to wake you up, Eddie, tried to interrupt _my_ computer time.** It said ‘computer time’ the way someone would say ‘board meeting’, and Eddie barely managed to keep from laughing at how serious it was. That didn’t keep the creature from knowing how he felt. **It’s not funny! He knows where we go during the day.**

“Damn it.” The kid had no issues with pestering them at night and he doubted they’d get peace during the day, and they weren’t able to swing away from him in plain sight at the library (and definitely weren’t allowed to duct tape him to a chair). If it was just the symbiote missing out on YouTube time he could avoid the library and deal with its anger, but he had to get his work done here, and while he could handle an angry alien, a hangry one was a different story. It was good that the symbiote didn’t seem to realize that Eddie’s work being interrupted meant no money which meant no food. 

**He is still here, waiting for us by the exit.**

“Then let’s go talk to him.” Eddie logged off the computer, getting up, but Venom didn’t let him go toward the door.

**We cannot let him be the one to catch us! We must catch him.**

“What does that mean? Do you want us to leave and find him later?” The symbiote made Eddie’s head nod enthusiastically. “You love to be dramatic, don’t you?” 

**You say that as if you don’t love it too.** Eddie wasn’t even going to try and defend himself, as he slipped out through one of the back doors without any protest. Instead of waiting for him outside of the library, they decided just to catch him near or at his apartment. They didn’t rush over, mainly because the symbiote was plotting how to threaten the teen. Most of the threats wouldn’t work, as they’d promised not to hurt him, but Eddie only put in his own suggestion when the symbiote started listing organs he’d never heard of. 

“If he doesn’t leave us alone, then you can… uh, eat his homework.”

**Yes! We will eat his home _and_ his work! Then he will have nowhere to go!**

“That isn’t what I meant, but there is no way you can eat his apartment.” 

**I cannot. But _we_ can.**

“I don’t… I don’t want to know if we can actually do that, so how about we don’t?” 

**Now you are saying we cannot eat the homes of children?** Eddie didn’t want to start a discussion about why it would be wrong to eat houses, especially since he was sure the symbiote was messing with him, but something it said caught his attention.  
“So, you think that Peter’s a child now?”

**…Yes. He is very tiny, very stupid, and easily defeated.**

“Not exactly the textbook definition for a child, but close enough. _Naïve and unskilled_ is a better way to put it.” He knew that the symbiote no longer considered him a threat, because despite his knowledge of fire being able to harm them, he hadn’t so much as threatened to use it (and even apologized again for hurting them with it). Which he sure as hell didn’t need to do since they’d responded so violently to what was the equivalent of a small scratch. When Spider-Man arrived in the neighborhood, he was easy to spot in his bright red and blue costume, and he was almost as easy to follow. He moved around fast while up in the rooftops, but he came down to the ground a lot and not only to stop bad guys. He was just… talking to people, mostly. Some asked for photos with him, a shop owner got help carrying heavy boxes to the back room, and a person who had barely missed their bus got swung over to the next stop so they could get on. He even watched someone’s dog for them while they ran in to grab their lunch. The symbiote was confused by all of this, not sure why Spider-Man wasted time doing such easy tasks (though it admitted that keeping the dog safe would be hard, as it was perfectly bite-sized). 

**Why does he do things that other humans can do easily?**

“Because not everybody is willing to help out.” People had walked past the struggling shop owner as he attempted to lift his heavy inventory, others that were waiting at the bus stop didn’t ask the driver to hold on even though they had seen the woman running and shouting for the bus, and the man and his dog had only been given annoyed looks whenever it started crying and attempting to chew through its leash before he could even make it into the restaurant for his takeout. 

**Is it because they’re bad people?**

“Not really. They just don’t care. Or think it’s important enough to spend their time on.” He could tell that the symbiote was thinking deeply, as it grew quiet. Eddie continued following the webslinger unnoticed, which wasn’t surprising as he’d done it before and the kid hadn’t seen him at all. Eddie was better at catching onto these things, so even before the symbiote was able to tell, he saw that they weren’t the only ones tailing the hero. The man was in a trench coat, his predatory face was framed by long, dark slick-backed hair, and his eyes never left his target.

**Who is that? Do we know him?**

“No.” Eddie frowned, seeing that the man wasn’t as subtle as he was, meaning that he was much closer to Spider-Man than they were. Despite this, the teenager remained unaware of both the men as he swung into an alleyway and out of Eddie's sight. 

**I don’t like how he looks, Eddie. We should eat him.**

“No, we’re not eating him.” Being on the opposite side of the street meant they had to wait for the light to change, “We’re going to ask him a few questions.”

**Then eat?** He saw the man walk into the alley and the rush of panic he felt was enough to upset the symbiote as well. He didn’t wait for the light, moving through the cars to get to the other, only actually getting hit by one, but instead of Eddie being sent flying the car itself would have a pair of hand-shaped dents in it from being stopped. The cars kept honking after he got out of the street, and he was too focused to hear whatever curses the drivers had been shouting at him. 

Eddie had been hoping to see an alleyway empty of anyone except for the man he’d followed, but instead he was able to catch Peter’s side profile before the kid strolled out of the alley. The man in front of him pulled out a phone as he stood shocked behind him. 

“I’ve got him.” Eddie heard the symbiote growl within his head, “No, but I can ID him. Bring up a list of residents between the age—” The man was cut off as a black tendril snapped around his mouth, yanking him toward Eddie as the man was covered by his symbiote. They were able to see a white, metallic substance spread across the top of the man’s arms in an almost skeletal pattern, ending in claws that he tried to use to free himself by tearing into them, the substance actually slicing through the alien's form.

Their mouth opened wider than Eddie had known was possible, and instead of only biting off the head, their teeth dug into the man’s shoulders as they twisted their head back and forth to slowly separate them from his body. He struggled, synthetic claws digging into them as they felt tendons snap, his arms falling uselessly to his sides. He was still alive as they slid their tongue in through the opening wound, it curled around his frantically beating heart before tearing it from the pericardium and swallowing it whole. When Venom had finished, they crouched, picking up the blood-soaked phone as the person on the other line continued to shout for the man that had just been devoured. 

**“Lee can’t come to the phone right now, but we can take a message for him.”** They lapped up the blood on the phone and ground, their saliva turning from clear to a translucent pink.

“Who… who is this?” 

**“We think you already know that.”** Their growl turned into a laugh as the man hung up, the symbiote receded, leaving Eddie on his knees, one hand still holding the phone. He let out a shout, dropping the phone and scrambling backwards away from where the puddle of blood had been. 

“We-We just ate that whole guy.” He said, dumbly, the only trace of him being a bit of blood and saliva still on the phone. “Why did we… you usually just eat the head!”

**Oh, Eddie.** The symbiote sounded like the cat that got the cream, **I have never felt you so angry. You hated that man more than anything. You wanted him _gone, gone, gone!_** It then added, thoughtfully, **We might start to like this kid.**

“I… we could have… we didn’t have to kill him.” If the symbiote wasn’t so content, he knew it would have been upset at him for lying. He realized himself that it was a lie before he said anything, there was no way this man would keep Peter’s secret. Even if he was rotting in prison, the word would get out that Spider-Man was only a kid, and Eddie knew that wouldn’t make the worst of them hesitate. If anything, they would see him as an easier target, and his super powers would become a curse instead of a gift as there would be no peace for him. He crawled back over to the phone, not surprised to find that it was a burner phone with no contacts saved, but he was able to jot down the phone number from the call down in his notebook before crushing the phone and throwing it in the alleyway dumpster. 

“Shit! The kid!” He shouted suddenly, running out of the alleyway and startling a man who had been walking past it. “We have to tell him what happened!” 

**Why? If someone else sees him, we will eat them too.**

“We can’t take that risk.” The only assurance that no one else knew came from the man’s phone call, but there would be more sent after Peter soon enough. “And we can’t just eat them. We don’t know how bad they are. We didn't know how bad _that_ guy was.”

**He was greasy.**

“What does that have to do with—”

**Like french fries.**

“I don’t want to hear about this.” Eddie frowned, “That stuff on him, it was able to hurt us. Was it--”

**Yes, Eddie. It was, we need to be careful.**

Eddie practically ran to the apartment building, keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious looking. The symbiote didn’t help at all, but that was on account of it being full, otherwise it would be suggesting that every third person looked like they needed to be eaten. Someone was going into the building, so Eddie didn’t have to buzz their apartment to let them know he was coming. May was understandably surprised when he was knocking at their door, but not as much as he had expected.

“Hi, Eddie, I didn’t know you were coming over! How’s the studying going? Peter hasn’t been giving you trouble, has he?” Eddie stared blankly at the woman, trying to understand what she was talking about. He saw Peter had just come out of his room, a look of panic on his face, but Eddie knew it wasn’t on account of him being scared of Venom this time. 

“Oh, uh, yeah. He’s been giving me trouble. I try to tell him to do one thing, but he does another. He thinks he knows what he’s doing better than I do.” Eddie had thought Peter told May that he wasn’t going to tutor him, but instead he let her think that he was so he could be Spider-Man for a few extra hours a day. “I haven’t seen much improvement at all.” 

“Jesus… Sorry, Eddie. Please, come inside. He’s an incredibly smart kid, but sometimes he can be a know-it-all. I told him that you’re the expert, since you were- _are_ a writer. Are you still writing? You don’t really have the bookish body type.”

“I lift weights for stress relief. It doesn’t work, but I’m addicted to it now.” Peter’s door slammed shut as he retreated into his room. 

“Again, I am so sorry. You didn’t have to come all the way out here, you could have called me instead. I can make a quick snack if you like.”

“I would have, 'cept I don’t have your number, or a phone. Thank you. I’m not hungry right now, but I would love to take something to go if it’s not too much trouble. I’m just going to talk to Peter, I think he’ll be more willing to listen now that you know how he’s been acting.”

“Don’t worry, he will.” 

**She is very threatening.** The symbiote seemed excited about Peter getting in trouble with May, **Tell her that he hit us too!**

“No!... I mean, I _know_ he will. He respects you, he wouldn’t have shown up for tutoring at all if he didn’t.” The man went into Peter’s room without knocking, the teen had his arms crossed and was glaring at him. 

**He looks even _less_ intimidating with the mask off.** It said like it didn’t believe that was possible, and Eddie was inclined to agree. 

“Why did you lie like that?! Are you trying to get me grounded?!” Peter whispered urgently.

“Kid, the truth would have gotten you a homemade house arrest anklet. We never agreed to cover for you, does she even know that you’re Spider-Man?”

“Yes! And you owed it to me for every time you left me tied up somewhere!”

“You deserved every one of those time-outs. We’re not apologizing for those—and we’re not here to talk about that either.” Eddie took in a breath. “When you were changing into your civilian clothes today, there was a guy watching you. A _really_ bad guy. He’d been following you to find out your identity.” 

“No… that’s... you’re lying. That’s not possible.” The color drained from the kid’s face, and he saw him get a bit unsteady on his feet. 

“Hey, it’s alright.” Eddie went over to Peter, guiding him to sit down on his lower bed and crouching down to be eye level. “We stopped him, nobody bad knows your identity. We swear. We aren’t always going to be around to keep them from seeing you. That’s something you need to be able to do yourself.” 

“I don’t… I don’t know how to do that.” There was fear in the teen’s voice, something else besides what Eddie had shared was bothering him, but the man didn’t push him for an explanation. 

“We can help with that. Stay inside tonight.” Eddie stood up, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” His terror seemed to dissipate, being replaced by confusion. 

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got tutoring at the library after school.” Eddie said like it was obvious, “Don’t be late.” He left Peter’s room, being given a bag of food that was way too much to be considered a snack by May, and headed back out into the streets, trying to remember if his buddy was at his corner yet, knowing the homeless man was a sucker for kale chips, and he doubted he’d had the homemade kind.

**Why are you teaching Spider-Man how to write? How will that help him not be stupid and get caught?**

“ _I’m_ not tutoring him. _We_ are.”

**What?! I never agreed to this!**

“The guys we’re after are after him now. We have to take responsibility for that. As much as I wanted to keep him out of this, he’s already involved. We aren’t going to make it easy for them to take down a kid.”

**They can’t catch a spider without getting some venom too!**

“… Hey, that’s a pretty good line. Maybe _you_ should be his writing coach.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter's POV next chapter, and the tutoring truly begins!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! This one is pretty dialogue heavy. More action in the next chapter!

Peter still wasn’t sure if he could entirely trust Eddie Brock (even after finding out that _was_ his real name). May had shown him what she had looked up on the man to make him understand that he was dealing with a professional and that he needed to treat him like one. There were more videos of him than examples of his writing in May’s bookmarks, and after she brought up some old Myspace pictures of him by accident that she had saved (which Peter wanted to burn the memory of from his brain) she let him off with the promise that he would actually listen to him. 

He had considered telling Mr. Stark about their meetings, but he knew as soon as that happened he would be forbidden from seeing him and his alien. That wasn’t too much of a loss, but he felt like he was getting close to learning _why_ they were here in the first place. It was still a huge gamble, considering the fact that he didn’t fully believe the pair. It was hard to believe that not one, but _two_ people hadn’t set off his spider-sense, but he had no reason to lie about it that he could think of. It might have been a good way to get Peter alone, but he’d already had that happen multiple nights, and each time he just tied him up and left him instead of doing anything. 

May made sure that he packed up everything he needed for studying, and tried to get him to leave behind the Spider-Man suit to make sure he didn’t goof off, but she knew that Peter wouldn’t go for that. Peter wasn’t sure what to expect when he made it to the library, but it wasn’t that he wouldn’t even be going inside of it. Eddie was waiting on the sidewalk and motioned for Peter to go along with him away from the library. 

“I thought you actually were going to be my literature tutor.” He said, relieved, as anything sounded better than sitting down and writing for a couple of hours. 

“Oh, we’re still going to be doing that, kid. Just not today.” 

“…Really?” Peter sighed, “Well, where are we going today?”

“I was going to ask you that. It’s your city isn’t it? Where do you go when you want to train without people seeing you?” 

“Train? You’re training me? Like, to fight?” Peter frowned, “I already know how to fight. Really well, actually.” The grin that broke across Eddie’s face was anything but encouraging, “I do! It’s just that…” Peter looked around, “I’ll take you somewhere and we can talk about it there.” 

It had been a while since Peter did any training except with Karen, and that seemed more like a tutorial on how to use his new webshooters than actual combat training. He could train just about anywhere with those as long as no one was nearby to get hit with random webbing. They would need to go somewhere more discreet, however, if Eddie was going to let the alien out, so he took him to a place he hadn’t been since after Tony had contacted him. 

It was an abandoned railway station, which would have been old, rusted, and colorless if it weren’t for all the graffiti artists that came and painted the walls. Peter took them in deep, to a tunnel that was blocked by a long dead train, but he was able to climb on top of it and crawl across to the other side, trying not to laugh as he heard Eddie struggle to do the same because it was a much tighter squeeze for the fully grown man. 

The area was a mess, and not just because it was old and without maintenance. There were broken and bent railway tracks all over the place, the walls and floors looked like someone had been firing cannons at them as they were covered in craters, and there was a huge pile of rubble that didn’t look as aged as the rest of the debris.

“This is where I first started practicing, and testing to see how much stronger I was. I’ve never had anyone come through here, I’ve heard people trying, but no grownups have even gotten close. Except for you.” Peter paused, “And me, technically, I’m almost a grownup. I’m just not physically as grown up as I will be” 

“This might actually be as tall as you’re ever going to get. You never know with puberty, and I don’t think super powers make it any easier to understand.”

“I am definitely getting bigger!” Peter insisted, though now he was worried about the effects the spider bite might have had on his growth hormones. They’d made him stronger, but not any taller, or his voice any deeper, or— “You didn’t have us come all the way out here just to call me short, did you?” 

“I never said it was a bad thing.” Eddie said, “There’s less to hit and you don’t get ceiling dirt all over your back while getting in to your secret hideout.” 

“This isn’t my secret hideout.” Peter technically didn’t have one, his room not counting as May came in whenever she wanted, and he thought that he should find one. “Oh, I brought us some snack bars.” Peter got some homemade energy bars out of his backpack, tossing the plastic bag to Eddie.

“And I got something too for, um… what’s its name?” The creature oozed out from Eddie’s shoulder, eyeing Peter curiously as he dug through his bag.

“Venom.”

“That’s a wicked name, but…You _really_ should have named it Onix. That would have been perfect.” He took out a can of cat food, having picked out the most expensive kind at the grocery store. He figured it liked meat, he knew that’s what cat food was mostly made out of and decided it was easier to carry along to school than a slab of meat. 

“Uh, I don’t know if he’d—” Eddie started, but the creature reached out and took the can gently from him, spinning it around to examine the container. Peter watched in fascination as it slid a tendril into the pull-tab, peeling it off as easily as a human would despite its lack of fingers. It scooped up the gravy covered chunks with that same appendage, looking at Peter. 

“Go on, eat it.” He said with a big smile, watching as it lifted the bit of food it had scooped up, and then throw it directly at the teen’s face, some of it getting into his mouth. 

“Venom!” Eddie said, outraged, but the creature was angrier than its host as it flung the can back at Peter. 

**“He brings _you_ something good to eat and me an already dead cat’s flesh from a can!”** Before he could get upset about being covered in smelly cat food, he was entirely thrown off by the fact that the creature was actually _speaking_.

“You can talk?!” he blurted out, “And that doesn’t have cat in it! It’s for cats to eat!”

**“Of course I can talk! You thought I couldn’t, and bring me food meant for a cat!”** It let out an angry shriek. **“He thinks I am your pet!”**

“Now, he didn’t actually say that, it’s just a misunderstanding—”

**“Eddie is the pet!”**

“Yeah, I’m the— What?! No!” Eddie took in a deep breath, the sound being lost in the loud hiss that was coming from the agitated symbiote. “We are partners. Equal partners.” The symbiote’s face didn’t look like it could be very expressive, as it was mainly a huge jaw with eyes, but Peter was able to see that it was giving Eddie a skeptical look. 

**“Not so sure now, Eddie… You _are_ a lot of work to take care of.”**

“We are going to talk about this later.” The man promised, exasperated, obviously not liking the idea that Peter had planted in the alien’s head. The teen didn’t notice, as he was too excited about this new discovery, even with the nasty taste of cat food in his mouth. 

“This is incredible! You’re sapient! I have so many questions! What’s space like? Do aliens have the same kind of math we do? What’s the technology like?” Eddie held up a hand to get him to stop. 

“Curb it, kid, we aren’t here to answer your questions.”

“I’m not actually asking _you_ any, I’m asking Venom.” Peter looked hopefully at the alien, but it turned its nose up at him. Or snout, whatever the front of its face was called.

**“I would not even tell you what time it is.”**

“You wouldn’t give him the time of day.” Eddie translated, “And here I thought he was warming up to you…” 

“Oh no, I’ve been calling him an ‘it’ this whole time! I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t know you were a guy.”

**“I am not a guy or a girl, you calling me ‘it’ is not an issue, and it is certainly not why I dislike you.”**

“Hold on, you’re not—” Eddie looked at the symbiote, “I’ve been calling you a ‘he’ this whole time, why didn’t you correct me?”

**“I like ‘he’ and ‘him’ too. It is what Eddie is called.”** Peter was waiting for more of an explanation, but it seemed that the fact they were Eddie’s labels was enough for the alien to want them as well. Venom’s answer made the man’s serious face break into a smile.

“If it’s not that, then why don’t you like me? I’m sorry that I thought you weren’t smart, but you never talked.” 

“That’s my fault, I thought he might freak you out by saying something weird, so I asked him to stay quiet.” Eddie admitted.

**“It is not your fault, Eddie, he has a small mind.”**

“I do not have a-! I am not small-minded!”

**“I have looked up what a leech was on the Google! It is a parasite! A _parasite!_ , Eddie!”** The symbiote was screeching, the word ‘parasite’ coming out like it was a bad word.

“That’s just what you look like!” Peter said, but that only made things worse as even Eddie seemed upset, as he started to walk away. 

“Venom! Where are you taking us?!”

**“Away! We are not staying here with this _brat!_ ” **Eddie stopped walking suddenly, though his body was jerking toward the direction he’d been moving toward. 

“We’re going to help him!”

“What exactly are you two going to help me with? Besides my writing.” He added the last part without enthusiasm.

“We’re going to help you with fighting.” If Eddie hadn’t been the one to say it, Peter wouldn’t have believed it, because that sounded like an insult. 

“With my _fighting_? I’m great at fighting! I can, and _do_ , kick ass!” 

“Really?” Eddie raised both of his brows, Venom had stopped trying to get him to walk away, clearly wanting to see where this was going. “Besides the power behind your hits, you aren’t. You can’t dodge, your aim is alright, but you don’t know what to do once you’ve latched on. You set yourself up to be hit or caught, I don’t know how you haven’t been hurt yet, ‘cause you go into a fight with no caution at all. You’re young, I get it, you think you’re invincible, but you’re not.” 

“It’s—I’m not--!” Peter was flushed, realizing that Eddie was right about his fighting when it came to Venom, “But that’s just you! You don’t set off my Spider-sense!” Peter blurted before he could stop himself. 

“What’s a ‘spider-sense’?” Eddie asked, and Peter knew he couldn’t convince the man to forget about what he said. 

“It’s… well, it’s a feeling I get when something bad is about to happen to me.” Peter tried to put it as simply as possible. “I can sense when someone is going to hit me before they even throw the punch, or if there’s a gun being fired at me, or if I’m about to slip on a floor or—” 

“Hold on. Let me get this straight. You’ve been cheating this whole time?” 

“It’s one of my powers! It’s not cheating!” 

“It is definitely cheating. You can’t beat us ‘cause your cheat codes don’t work.” Eddie laughed.

“I can still get hit if I don’t do anything! I have to move too, it doesn’t just dodge for me. That’s all me.”

“But you don’t know how to dodge without it?” 

“I was able to dodge you two a few times…” But that hadn’t been based on how dangerous the attack was, as he’d definitely gotten himself in deep trouble by not dodging Venom’s more vicious strikes.

“Not fast enough. You need to be able to watch whoever you’re fighting and figure out when and where they’re gonna hit you. With your eyes, not your cheating powers.”

“It’s just one of my super powers! It’s not cheating if it’s one of my powers! You could say the suit is cheating, but I can fight without that!” He was going to say ‘too’, but he honestly didn’t know how well he could fight _without_ his spider-sense. He’d been in a few fights before he got his powers, but those were technically just him getting beat up with his best moves being when he was able to get away from the bullies.

“What does your suit do? Besides the webs and armor?” 

“I don’t actually know everything that it does, but it’s a whole lot. It can predict fighting patterns too.” Peter had never used it because of his spider-sense, but was thinking now he should have used it for Venom.

“You can fight without the suit, but not without your spider-sense. What are you going to do if it doesn’t work on someone who doesn’t care about killing a kid?” Peter saw the man was gritting his teeth, like he knew the hypothetical person he was talking about. 

“First of all, I am _not_ a kid—” Venom, who had been remaining quiet, suddenly spoke up. 

**“He is not a child! I told you, Eddie.”**

“Yeah!” Peter grinned, pleasantly surprised that the symbiote was the one out of both of them that could see how skilled he was.

**“That means I can eat him.”** Venom started to drool, its tongue hanging out of its mouth as it stared down Peter. **“We do not hurt children, only adults.”**

“Actually, I…” Peter faltered, leaning back a bit. “I’m still _legally_ a child, so you still can’t. And once I am, you won’t want to eat me ‘cause we’ll definitely be friends by then.”

**“We do not care about the law, and I will never be your friend. You will be eaten either way.”** Eddie shoved Venom, getting drool all over his hand and not seeming to mind.

“Quit teasing him.” Eddie chided, the alien only kept grinning at him and shoved back against his hand. 

“ _That_ was teasing?” Peter shuddered a bit at the memory of what Venom was like when it _wasn’t_ joking around. “I thought we were going to get serious.”

“If we don’t have fun with this, it’s going to suck. For both of us.” Peter was going to ask if Eddie meant himself and Peter or himself and the symbiote, but figured that the alien would like it if they got into a serious fight. 

“Okay, then, let’s get started.” Peter was about to take off his bag and put on his suit, but he was suddenly punched in the face by Eddie, it wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but the surprise made it so the hit knocked him to the floor. He heard the man swear over the symbiote’s mocking laughter. 

“Peter! Are you okay?” Eddie got onto his knees by him, and the teen responded instinctively, kicking him right in the nose. Peter had expected the alien to get mad and bite him, but it kept laughing. 

**“You let him knock you on your ass, Eddie!”**

“God--! What the hell, kid?” Eddie sat up, pinching his bleeding nose, “You don’t hit that hard in a fake fight!”

“But you… you hit me first!” Peter rubbed his cheek, he’d gotten enough hits to know when something would bruise, and he was thankful he wouldn’t have to explain anything to May.

“You were supposed to dodge it! Didn’t you see my fist coming?”

“I didn’t expect you to actually hit me!” His spider-sense would have warned him about getting a small scrape, so it was jarring to have an average looking guy (sans the alien protruding out of him) clock him without so much as a tingle. 

**“You are hitting children, Eddie. Look, he is going to cry.”**

“I am not going to cry! You just need to warn me next time!” 

“You aren’t going to get a warning in a fight. And you said you were ready to start.” His nose had stopped bleeding, thanks to Venom, and he smeared most of the blood off with the back of his sleeve. “But maybe fists isn’t the best way to start. Is there anything too small for your spider-sense?” 

“Um… not that I know of. It warns me if I’m about to get a paper cut from turning a page wrong.” Peter eyed Eddie and Venom warily as the man circled him, jumping as he felt him pinch his shoulder. “Hey!” 

“Okay, I’ll give you warnings. Would it normally set off: this?” Peter winced as he was flicked in the back of the head. “Sorry, did that hurt?” 

“Kinda, but… it’s just _weird_ not sensing when something is about to hit me. It’s like playing dodgeball with a blindfold on.”

“You better not speaking from experience.” Eddie gave Peter a few prods randomly, the teen managed to swat his hand away a few times before he could, but only when his attacks were in sight. He managed to ruffle and mess up his hair, nab his headphones from his pocket, and even—

“Ugh! Gross!” Peter put a hand over his ear, “A wet willy? What is this, middle school?” 

“…I didn't give you a wet willy.” Eddie said before looking at the alien. 

**“You need to clean your ears.”** Venom’s grin widened.

“I do now! Ugh, that is so gross!” Peter wiped at his ear, sure that May would be delighted to help him with an ear flush. “You didn’t spit out eggs in there, did you?” 

**“Any offspring would suffocate in your ear wax.”**

“Remember what I said about other people and personal space? It’s worse if you invade it with your tongue.” Venom stuck the appendage out at Eddie, “Ready to go again, Peter?” 

“No, I’m not. I… this feels really disgusting, you know?” Peter tilted his head, smacking it to try and get the drool out. 

“I know.” Eddie’s empathy was sincere. “Same time tomorrow?”

“Actually, I don’t know how much this is helping. It kind of just seems like you two are messing with me. How is this supposed to help—” Peter’s hand shot up to block Eddie as he went in for another punch. Peter could tell that if he hadn’t caught it, the man wouldn’t have hit him as it was a fake out punch.

“Look at that. You’ve gotten better at predicting when someone is going to hit you. At least when it’s aimed right at your face.” 

“I guess… But you need a better training plan than just poking me next time. Do we meet here tomorrow?”

“No, we’ll meet at the library again. I’m going to tutor you on writing first so you don’t fall asleep on me after training.” 

" _Great_. We shouldn't leave together, just in case we're seen." Peter turned to climb back over the train, but stopped, "Sorry about hitting you in the nose."

"Like you said, it's because I hit you first." Eddie shrugged, "Let's just call it even." 

"Bye, Eddie!" Peter shouted as he scaled the train, "Bye, Mr. Venom!" 

**" _Mister Venom?_ "** The last thing he heard was the alien's confused tone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter, but I just wanted to get this out there so you all know I'm still writing this!

Getting tutored in a boring subject was still boring even with the addition of an extraterrestrial teaching assistant. Eddie had made several attempts to explain the difference between a semicolon and a colon, most of which only made Peter more confused about the punctuation. The man tried to say sentences out loud then make two different sounds, one for the colon and one for the semicolon, to show when they would be used, and when that didn’t work he tried drawing a little cartoon about them on a piece of scratch paper, the only thing Peter learned was that Eddie couldn’t draw. 

Eddie ended up typing up several sentences quickly, ones that were missing all forms of punctuation, and letting Peter put in what he thought was right. It was frustrating to say the least, as there was rarely one right answer and it was all situational. In math, there was a simple, single answer to the question along with the work that led up to it, and in science there may be multiple answers, but unlike in science he couldn’t add an explanation in his paper as to why he used a semicolon instead of a period.

Peter had gotten a lot better at tuning out the extreme amount of stimuli his heightened senses were picking up, making the sounds of pages turning, clothes shuffling, keyboards clicking, and people whispering turning into a background hum rather than something to focus on. He was even able to ignore the small tab in the corner of the computer screen that was being used for Venom’s videos, as the alien had quickly found the tutoring to be boring to watch. However, he couldn’t ignore the familiar videos and muted audio from the headphones that kept reoccurring no matter how hard he tried.

“You can skip the ads, you know.” Peter said after the fifth advertisement about the financial compensation available to those who suffered hoverboard injuries. “That button on the screen that says ‘skip’ will let you do it.” He was physically going to point it out the button when Eddie spoke for the alien.

“He likes the ads.” 

“What- _nobody_ likes ads!”

“He _likes_ the ads.” Eddie repeated. “If it’s bothering you so much, he can use a different computer.”

“No, it’s ok. He can keep watching whatever he-“

“I wasn’t actually talking to you.” The man said before Peter could finish. 

“…I’m sorry? Is my tutoring getting in the way of his YouTube time?”

“No, it’s your comments. If you’d focus on the studying instead, then he wouldn’t have a problem with it.” Peter stared at Eddie for a long time, he saw the alien’s tiny head poke out from the man’s collar to stare back at him. 

“I can study better on my own.” 

“No, come on, kid. You’re already improving. Is it easier for you to work on paper? ‘cause we don’t have to be on the computer. No, we don’t. You can read a book or something.”

“You need to make it clearer who you’re talking to.” Peter tried not to get too upset, he doubted it was easy to do anything with a literal earworm. “Just type a paragraph again and I’ll fix it.” It was nicer than Eddie picking apart his paper again. 

“Okay, but next time you’re going to work on your paper. Or if you want, rewrite the whole thing.”

“Why would I rewrite it? Why am I even _editing_ it? It’s not even due anymore!” 

“Because you get extra credit if you rewrite your paper and turn it in before the end of the school year.” 

“…How do you know that?”

“I’m your tutor, I gotta know this stuff.”

“You can learn it by asking. Not digging through my _teacher’s_ garbage.” 

“It’s easier than getting it out of you. Now get back to work, I promised your aunt I’d email her the progress.”  
“What?!”

After the tutoring, Peter was actually looking forward to the physical training, even if it was going to go as badly as before. Being hit multiple times was less exhausting than having to reread and edit his own writing for over an hour. When Eddie squeezed past the train, Peter had already taken off his backpack and gotten his webshooters on. He would have wanted the whole suit, but he didn’t want Venom to literally catch him with his pants down. Eddie had to be helped off of the train by the symbiote, which remained out on his shoulders, looking at Peter like he was their next meal. It would have bothered the teen more if it wasn’t for the fact that the symbiote _always_ looked at everyone and everything like that. 

“What do you have your webs for?” Eddie asked, walking over to him.

“I’m not going to just let you keep hitting me. Besides, I use them to dodge.” 

“We aren’t going to do what we did last time.” Eddie said, “I actually thought about how this should go, and I’m gonna teach you how to dodge before making you do it.” 

“I’m still keeping the webshooters.”

“Fine.” Eddie shrugged. “Say someone’s coming in to punch you in the face hard from the right, how do you dodge?” 

“To the left?” Peter guessed, as he usually didn’t have to think about it when he was fighting. 

“No, you’d want to duck down and move in to do a counterattack, otherwise they’ll just keep swinging at you until they hit, and if you have to move your head like that, they’ll probably get your body. What’s the most important part to watch when you’re fighting someone?”

“Their fists? Or their weapons if they’re holding any.” 

“No, you need to be looking all over. You need to be able to read someone’s body language, it will tell you what they’re going to do next.” 

“Whoa.” Peter said, actually impressed. He’d been able to notice people’s little movements more with his enhanced vision, but he hadn’t really tried to use it to be able to anticipate their next moves as his spider-sense did that for him. “What kind of fighting training do you have?” 

“None, actually.” Eddie rubbed the back of his head. 

“You mean you learned all this by yourself? You can watch how people fight and know how to dodge and—” Peter was interrupted by the symbiote laughing. 

**“Eddie is worse at fighting than you!”** The man flushed a bit at that. 

“Thanks. Venom actually does most of the work when it comes to fighting. He knows how to move to dodge and how to go in for the attack, even when he’s just using my body.” 

“So, you cheat too!” Peter accused, “Venom’s doing all the work!”

“’Too’?” Eddie grinned, “I never claimed that I was a good fighter, and me and Venom work together, he couldn’t do any of this stuff without me, and I couldn’t without him.”

 **“I could do it without you, with a different host.”** Eddie looked upset at that, but the alien continued before he could respond. **“But I only want Eddie.”**

“And you’re the only parasite I want.” Eddie said back, which made the creature visibly bristle and snarl. “Sorry, I’m just kidding!” The alien narrowed its eyes before slipping back inside of the man. 

“Where does he go when he does that?” 

“I’m here to teach you writing and fighting. The Intro to Symbiotes class costs extra. Now I’m gonna do some moves and I’ll tell you what to watch for.”

Peter picked up on the visual cues surprisingly quick, even though he’d mainly relied on his spider-sense, he was able to remember and recognize many of the movements he’d seen when it had made him dodge. Even if the two set off his spider-sense normally, it wouldn’t have gone off at all since the man never actually hit him, and the alien didn’t make an appearance either, so Peter didn’t have to worry about any disgusting surprise attacks. He wanted to practice fighting Venom, not just Eddie, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he was up to that, otherwise he would have told Eddie. 

“You’re a fast learner.” Eddie praised, “With your writing too. But we haven’t really seen you fight against anyone else. If you aren’t doing anything, I thought that tonight we could all go out on a---”

“You want to team up?” Peter’s eyes brightened. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Who are you guys after? What are their plans? Do you know yet or are you trying to find out? Where’s their hideout?”

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself. I meant that we go along with your nightly routine. You stop muggers and burglars, right?”

“Some nights, yeah, but it’s not _every_ night. I’d see more action if we were going after someone specific.”

“You aren’t ready for that yet, Peter. The only real fight we’ve seen you in is against us, and you lost big time. Show us what you got if you want to change our minds.”

“I will! You’ll see how good I am at fighting, and then I’ll help you fight.”

“You got a deal, Peter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patrol time's up next!


	12. Chapter 12

Venom was regretting Eddie’s decision to go along with Spider-Man on his patrol. He was annoying enough as Peter, but that was multiplied as he became the masked hero, it was almost like he was a different person. It had been easy to ignore before because they would tie him up and leave him, but now he was right by them constantly asking questions and making comments. They had just run up the side of the building with the teen tailing behind them as they searched for any crime in the streets below. 

“You just shattered three windows, did you know that?” Spider-Man said as he landed next to them, “And you left a few dents in the building itself. You’re not too careful about what you break, are you?”

 **“We are heavy.”** Venom answered, crouching down on all fours as they thought they heard shattering glass elsewhere. 

“Yeah, I know you’re heavy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be careful. The way you distribute your weight can—”

 **“We see trouble.”** Venom said, spotting a shifty looking man standing around the back end of a store, they were also able to see where the door had been shattered. Likely, there were more inside, and with the broken street light and lack of alarm system, they probably thought they’d get away with it.

“Where? I don’t see anything?” Spider-Man jumped onto Venom’s back, leaning over their head as his hands slid down their forehead, pressing down on the white eyes and squishing them down. “Karen, can I get heat signatures?” Peter only leaned forward more, his fingers pressing their eyes further down their face. 

_You alright there, Venom?_ Eddie could feel the alien’s agitation, which also meant it could feel his amusement, it only answered with a disgruntled noise as it continued to tolerate the teen. 

“You can see that from here? I thought I had good eyesight! You have Darkvision!” 

**“We have what?”**

“Nevermind! I have to go stop these guys!” Peter said, jumping off of Venom and swinging off before they could respond.

They followed after him much slower, and Eddie wasn’t sure if it was because the alien didn’t want them spotted. He kept from commenting, thinking that Venom was trying not to do damage like the kid had pointed out. Peter managed to web up the lookout before he could warn the others, and he wasted no time going into the store. When the sound of gunfire came from within, they moved faster, Eddie was able to see that the webbed up man’s eyes got huge as he began to struggle harder with a giant, sharp-toothed creature running toward him. Venom was going to break through the wall when they heard Peter taunting the burglars.

“You guys are really bad shots! Maybe if you turned on the light, you’d miss less!” Peter’s voice and costume made him an easy target, even if it was too dark for them to see, they could just fire at where he was speaking, and his suit was as easy to miss as a stop-sign. Venom was dark enough, and the burglars distracted enough, to slip inside unnoticed, climbing up on the ceiling to watch. 

They were good aims, one of them was especially good at homing in on Peter’s voice, but the kid always dodged at the last second. He would either jump out of the way or twist his body around so the bullets didn’t even graze him. Venom noticed too late that while Peter was dodging someone aiming from the front, another shot at his back. The alien was ready to lunge after the dirty move was made, planning to get Peter to the hospital as soon as possible. But he dodged the bullet behind him as if he’d seen it coming for him, faster than if he’d seen it, actually. There were several instances when they saw him make a strange maneuver before they even heard a gun go off, and he dodged a falling ceiling tile before it hit him. 

_You’re worried about him._ Eddie teased, as he could feel his other’s emotions clearly as he watched the teen nearly get hit several times. 

**I am not! I know that if he gets hurt, then Eddie will cry. And Eddie is an ugly crier.**

They noticed that the gunfire had completely stopped, and it wasn’t because they’d run out of bullets. They’d been so busy watching Peter, making sure that he wasn’t in any danger, that they didn’t see what he’d been doing to the men. He’d webbed their hands, feet, and even some of their mouths, securing them to the floor or a wall. 

“You better hope they have good insurance, or you’re paying for this mess.” Peter said as he began to tie them up properly with his webbing, bundling them together for the police to apprehend. Venom climbed down from where they had been watching, moving behind Peter as he finished up the last of the cocoons. 

**”Excellent work.”** Venom said, making Peter launch himself into the air, sticking to the ceiling and staring down with the eyes on his suit open as wide as they were able to. 

“Where did you come from?! How long have you been in here?!” he asked, taking in a deep breath before landing on the ground again. “If this suit wasn’t so secure, I would have jumped right out of it.”

 **”We have been here the entire time.** Venom moved past Peter on all fours, looking over the captured robbers, all of which were struggling with renewed effort to get out of their binds. **”Which one are you going to eat? We think the one in the middle would be the juiciest.”** The mentioned criminal stopped struggling altogether, having fainted from fear. 

“Give me a warning before you— Did you just ask if I was going to _eat_ one of them?!”

 **”No, we asked which one.”** Venom left out Eddie’s protests, as the man didn’t think it was an appropriate assumption at all. 

“I’m not— I don’t—I’ve never—” Peter stuttered a few times before finally getting out what he wanted to say. “I don’t eat people! I never have! Why would you think that I do?!” 

**”You are a spider, and spiders wrap them up like this before they drink their juices. How will you do that through your mask?”** Peter put his hands over his face, shaking his head from what was obviously the disgusting mental image. 

“I’m not _literally_ a spider! I don’t eat people, or dissolve them and drink them! That’s disgusting!” Venom peered over their shoulder at Peter, looking him up and down. 

**”No wonder you are so small.”**

“I am _not_ small. And even if I was, I wouldn’t eat people if it meant it would make me bigger! Which it _wouldn’t_ by the way, that’s not how it works.”

 **”How would you know if you have never tried it?”** Venom grinned a huge toothy, drooly grin at the teen. 

“…Oh my god. Do _you_ eat people?” Peter squeaked out, despite the increasing evidence of this, he hadn’t let himself think about the fact that the creature actually ate humans. Venom’s grin only grew impossibly wider before they moved to leave the busted up store.

 **”We have more crime to stop, Spider.”** Venom said as Peter had Karen call the police about the break in. 

“You can’t just eat people!” he shouted after them, running out of the store and swinging after the large black shape that was bounding away. It wasn’t until Venom stopped again, peering down an alleyway where there were two people talking to one another. 

**”We only eat bad people."**

“That’s still eating people—you don’t, you _can’t_ do that.” 

**”We will handle this one. You are too young.”**

“Too young for what? They aren’t even fighting.” Peter whispered, though it wasn’t necessary as Venom jumped down from the roof and landed loudly next to the pair. 

**”Do not sell drugs.”** Venom said before backhanding one of them, sending him flying down the alley. **”Do not buy drugs.”** Venom told the other, but before they could do anything Spider-Man landed between them. 

“Whoa! I think he learned his lesson!” he said, holding up his hands at Venom as the man ran away, dropping what he had just purchased. Venom didn’t follow, and Peter let out a relieved sigh. He then hopped onto the wall by the unconscious dealer, looking down at him. 

“I think you gave him two, maybe three, concussions at once.” Spider-Man looked down at him, “He didn’t even have any weapons out. Couldn’t you have been a bit more gentle?”

**”We were very gentle, he is still alive.”**

“Not murdering someone and being gentle with someone are not the same thing.” Peter had Karen call an ambulance for this one, not wanting to move him. “Why did you say I’m too young for this?”

**”He has very bad drugs, and you are a teenager. We have seen in the ads that teenagers have difficulty not doing drugs.”**

“Wh- How does that make sense? You thought I was just going to come down and start doing drugs?”

**”You are not strong enough to resist peer pressure.”**

“He’s not my peer!”

**”One in every eight teens.”**

“ _Please_ stop watching ads.” Spider-Man put his hands over his eyes, “I am one of the seven that won’t do drugs! And selling drugs is really bad, but you don’t have to attack him like that. Sometimes you need to pull your punches.”

**”We do pull our punches back, it is how we hit so hard.”**

“That… I don’t mean the motion of pulling your fist back. It means not to hit as hard as you can because you don’t need to.”

 **”Why would we make ourselves weak?”** Venom hissed, climbing up the alley wall when they heard the approaching sirens. 

“It’s actually the opposite.” Peter shot a web onto Venom’s back, pulling himself up onto it and hitching a ride. “It takes a lot of strength to hold back, a lot more than it does to hit as hard as you can.”

Eddie expected Venom to brush off the comment, but was surprised to feel that the symbiote was actually thinking about the kid’s words. He’d never really thought about asking the alien to be gentle, whenever he wanted to be careful he usually took over controlling their body, having thought that Venom wouldn’t understand the concept of pulling a punch. It didn’t help that before this, Eddie had never been in a fight where he had to keep from hitting too hard, even so, he usually still ended up losing. 

“I’d say we had a really productive night. Do you want a hot dog? Or maybe twenty?”

**”You are buying.”**

“… Emil has only given me two hot dogs at the most, I can’t get twenty free hot dogs. You can just have mine?”

 **”We will eat only one. And Emil.”** Venom laughed.

“Not funny.” He hopped off of Venom, “Okay, follow me, but I’m getting the hot dogs alone.” 

Venom listened, thankfully, and was waiting on the roof when Peter got back with the two hot dogs, holding one out to Venom. The alien pulled back inside of the man, and Eddie took the hot dog instead. He tried not to think about how they were on a roof, it helped that the alien had kept them in the middle instead of leaning off the edge.

“Whoa! Uh, hi!” Peter said, looking surprised that the man had come out. 

“I’ll get the next ones.” Eddie said before taking a bite out of the hot dog. Peter looked around before taking off his mask so he could eat too. 

“So… you just sleep in there? Sit in there? What do you do while Venom is running around?”

“We run around together. I usually have Venom take the lead because he’s better at it, but we both have control.” Without the mask on, it was easier to see the confused look on Peter’s face. 

“I don’t really get how you can both have control at the same time… is it like crowdsourcing on Twitch?”

“I have no idea what Twitch is, but it’s like crowdsourcing, yeah.” Eddie ate the hot dog almost as fast as Venom would be able to, not having a hot meal in days. 

**That man’s flesh and blood was very hot when we ate it.**

“That does _not_ count.” 

“What doesn’t count?” Peter asked with his mouth half full. “Are you talking to him?”

“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to him.” Eddie said, glad that Venom wasn’t speaking out loud. 

“When he… when Venom eats people, are you eating them too?” 

“Am I—No, of course not… I mean, not really…”

**Eddie helps chew sometimes.**

“That’s just a reflex! No, I don’t… I don’t want to eat people, but Venom needs to, mostly. We can eat _other_ things instead, but...”

“Could you?!” Peter cleared his throat, “I mean… can you do that? Eat… eat other things instead of humans. I can get you some other food, or help pay for it, or have Aunt May make you stuff.” 

Eddie could hear Venom growling in the back of his head, normally the alien would be amused by the suggestion, but it could tell that Eddie was actually considering it. The man hadn’t planned on eating anyone in front of Peter, but he hadn’t really thought about how it would make him feel spending time with a guy who bites people’s heads off on the regular. Even if they did it out of sight, they couldn’t exactly hide it, as headless bodies with teeth marks was a pretty big news story after all. 

“Yeah, we could do that.” Eddie said, nonchalant, as if there wasn’t an outraged alien screeching every swear word it had learned inside of his head.

“Oh, great.” Peter's extreme look of relief caught Eddie by surprise, and the big smile on his face was enough to make Venom’s tantrum endurable. “I have to get back home, but I’ll see you two tomorrow at the library!” He put his mask back on before bounding over to the next rooftop.

“Come on, tomorrow’s payday. I’ll get you some top quality chocolate.” Venom had gone silent, which was a blessing as the screeching was starting to give him a headache. He changed his mind about that when he found that the roof access door was locked and the only way down was a rusty and unstable looking fire escape. "Okay, we are... just gonna wait up here until you stop huffing and puffing about this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Eddie's going to be up there all night.  
> Coming up next is more training, but the teacher will also become the taught.  
> Also, I have a question for you all. Do you prefer Venom's speech to be bolded or just left as is/only bolded when talking internally to Eddie? I'm fine with either way, but just let me know if you have a preference! This chapter has their voice in bold for the first time, so you can see if you like it that way or not.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be a lot less busy soon, so hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently! I plan to get the next chapter up before Far From Home before it sends my brain for a loop on writing everyone!   
> Thanks for all your input! I went back and made Venom's text bolded and will do so from now on!

After a long night on the roof, and what would have been a long morning as well if someone hadn’t opened the roof door for a smoke break, Eddie was looking forward to the library. He’d gotten a bit of sleep on the roof, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable as Venom had only done the bare minimum, making sure he wasn’t too cold but not giving him any cushioning against the hard concrete. The worn and peeling computer chair felt as soft as clouds looked, and Venom was finally distracted from his griping as he signed in to his YouTube account. Eddie drifted off before the alien picked out a video, looking forward to a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep before Peter came around for tutoring. 

“Hi, Eddie!” he was woken by the excited voice along with Venom’s internal hiss at the intrusion. The man felt like he’d hardly gotten any sleep, and a look at the clock confirmed this. 

“Why aren’t you in school?” Eddie asked, rubbing his eyes with the hand Venom wasn’t using to type. 

“It was an early release day. I was hoping I’d find you here, ‘cause then we can get started and finish early so I can go on a longer patrol during the day, and tomorrow’s the weekend so I can stay up later too!” 

_**Tell him to fuck off.** _

“That sounds great.” Eddie wasn't sure where Peter got all this energy from, but this was the most excited he’d seen him for tutoring and he wasn’t going to wait and see if he’d be as eager at their normal time. 

It wasn’t hard to stay awake, Venom was complaining the whole time, and if writing wasn’t second nature to Eddie, he might have had trouble focusing on correcting Peter over its griping. He could tell that the kid was trying to get through it fast as he made more mistakes than usual, but Eddie only made him spend time on fixing them, so in the end he seemed to get that when he used a better pace, he saved more time not needing to find and fix so many typos. Despite having seemed to calm down, as soon as they left the library Peter’s energy returned as he practically bounced to the training area. Venom had to keep taking the wheel as Eddie nearly dozed off in the middle of walking there. By the time they’d made it over the train, Peter was already digging through his bag, taking out some snacks that May had packed, as well as a few other packages he didn’t recognize. 

“So, I was thinking we might try something different today. Instead of just you helping me out, I can…” Eddie nodded off, Peter’s voice becoming a muffled noise as he kept talking, since Venom was keeping him upright it was hard to tell that the man had fallen asleep. 

“Eddie?” He felt something poke him, and looked to see a concerned Peter staring up at him, “Were you asleep? Why are you so tired? Do we need to do this another day? Or another time?” 

“No. No. We didn’t crawl in here for nothing. I just didn’t manage to make it back, uh… home last night.”

“What! Why not? Were you fighting criminals without me? You should have called if you found something! What’s your cellphone number?”

“Even if we had a phone, I wouldn’t give you our number.” Eddie could easily picture the endless stream of text messages that would come from Peter.

“Why don’t you have a phone?”

“I mean, I do, but not on me, or connected. It’s… Well, it’s sensitive stuff we’re here to deal with, and we don’t want our phone getting hacked by anyone.” He saw Peter’s eyes widen before he beamed.

“You two are like secret agents! But without any cool tech! Where’s your secret hideout?” 

“It’s, uh… well…” Eddie scratched the top of his head, Venom came out of his shoulder to answer. 

**”We live in the sewers.”** If he’d said anything else, Eddie would be happy that the alien was talking to Peter, but he knew that he only was because he knew Eddie was hesitant to tell him. **”Eddie is too broke for rent.”** There was good reason for Eddie’s hesitation, as he could already see the uneasiness and embarrassment in Peter, the teen looked down, fiddling with the hem of his shirt awkwardly.

“I…um… I have…” Eddie raised a brow as Peter looked up at him earnestly “I have a bunk bed.” 

The man had to bite his lip and look away, to keep from smiling, or even _laughing_ at how unwaveringly selfless the kid was. He put a hand on his head and ruffled his hair into a horrible mess to try and switch up the mood as Peter whacked his hand away and tried to fix his hair. 

“We’re fine down there. It’s uninhabited, easy to get to, and hard for people to follow us.” 

“If you’re sure…” Peter still seemed skeptical, “But I still think you should take a nap.” 

“Can’t train you if I’m napping.” 

“But Venom can, right? Or do you have to be awake?”

“You are _not_ ready to fight Venom yet.” Especially not with the alien being pissed off about the kid. He knew that he wasn’t going to try and hurt Peter, but without him chaperoning, he didn’t want to chance that something bad might happen on accident.

“Not fighting, I just want to test some stuff with him. I promise it won’t hurt either of us.” 

“What do you think, Venom? Do you want to try what he wants?” 

**”I am surprised you asked this time.”** Venom hissed. **”I will do it if he promises not to speak to us unless it is an emergency on our patrol tonight.”** Eddie could tell that his other was curious about what Peter wanted to do with him, but if he made a deal then he wouldn’t just blow him off when it got bored doing what Peter asked. 

“Deal! But what counts as an emergency?” Venom covered up Eddie, crouching down as they watched Peter open some of the packages he had.

**”Loss of limb or worse.”** Venom replied, the man had fallen asleep less than 10 seconds after Venom had taken over for them, so he couldn’t answer any of the alien’s questions as Peter started inflating a bunch of balloons. 

"That's pretty extreme. I _hope_ I won't have any reason to talk tonight." Peter picked up one of the balloons and held it up, “Let’s say this is a baby.” 

**”That is not a baby.”**

“Just _pretend_ that it’s a baby.”

**”Why not use a real baby? It is less confusing.”**

“I can’t just take someone’s baby!”

**”We know this.”** When Venom had shown interest in owning one of the small creatures, Eddie had explained that they were young humans and were not up for grabs or even for sale. 

“Then you know why I don’t have an actual baby. This is like a baby, it’s a water balloon, so it pops easy--”

**”How do you know that babies pop easy?”** Venom growled, narrowing their eyes. 

“No! Babies don’t—I’ve never popped a baby! I mean, they’re both very _delicate_. You have to be careful when holding them.” Peter held out the balloon to Venom, “Take it like you would a baby.” 

**”This is stupid.”** Venom took the balloon into one hand, cradling it with the other as it glowered at Peter, not seeing the point of this. 

“Wow! That’s great!” Peter said, obviously surprised by how gently the alien held it. “Now, pretend that it’s a criminal that you just cau—” The balloon popped before Peter could finish his sentence, Venom snarled and jumped away, their back arched upward like a defensive cat. 

**”You did not tell us it would be loud!”**

“It’s a balloon popping! Of course it’s loud, but it’s not that bad.” Venom moved over to Peter, grabbing another balloon and popping it by the teen’s ear. “Ow! What the hell?!”

**”It is not _that_ bad.”** Venom swiped at the balloons, sending them bouncing all over the place. **”Why are you having us do this?”**

“You need to learn how to be gentler. It looks like you _can_ be gentle, but you aren’t always. Especially with bad guys.”

**”Why would we be gentle with bad guys? They are _bad_.”**

“They’re still _people_. And if you hurt them too bad, they could die.” 

**”Good.”**

“No! Not good! Killing people is _bad_!” Peter exclaimed, going to gather the stray balloons. “Even if they’ve done bad things, they deserve another chance at life.” Venom stuck out their tongue and made a face at how cheesy the teenager was being.

**”We think _you_ should kill more bad guys. And then eat them.”**

“I am never doing any of that.” Peter said, tossing the balloons back toward Venom. “If you don’t like the sound of them popping, I can bring something else.”

**”There is no need for that. We do not want or need to do this.”**

“Fine.” Peter shrugged, “If it’s too hard for you, we don’t have to do it.” 

**”We never said it is too hard.”**

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to be good at everything. If you can’t learn this like I did, there’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

**”We _can_ learn this! We can be better than you at anything!”** Venom couldn’t believe how arrogant the child was being toward them. They were going to show him that there was nothing that they couldn't do.

“No, I mean it. Especially if it’s not a problem for you. If you’ve never broken anything you weren’t supposed to, or accidentally attacked someone you weren’t supposed to…” Venom frowned. They had definitely broken things they hadn’t meant to while chasing bad guys, and Eddie always got upset when they weren’t gentle with the law enforcement (even though that was unreasonable, as they had gotten in Venom’s way even after being warned). 

**”We… have broken things we did not mean to.”** Venom admitted, **”But we do not see how _you_ can help us with that.”**

“I have to watch my strength too. I broke… so many things when I first got my powers. Not just little things, I ripped off a couple of doors on accident, and broke through some walls, and ceilings, and tiles and… well, May didn’t get her deposit back when we moved.” Peter said, bashfully. “Just think about how hard I hit you, what would happen if I hit a normal person that hard?” Venom tilted their head, thinking. 

**”You could shatter skulls easily with your strength. Why don’t you?”**

“First of all, that’s disgusting, I would not want to do anything like that ever. And I don’t want to hurt people like that. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should, and I think it would help if you were able to hold back against some of the normal bad guys.”

**”We will learn this. For Eddie.”** Even though the man tolerated a lot, even so much as going along with eating people, Venom knew that sometimes their strength scared him. That fear had come out full force when they had hurt Peter so badly, Eddie blamed himself for that, for losing control, and learning some might ease his worries.

“Awesome! Is… is he still asleep?” 

**”Eddie sleeps through everything.”**

“Even balloons popping?” Peter kicked away the balloons near him since Venom didn’t want to use them. “How about you try running across the room without—” They bounded across the room at full speed, leaving cracks in the ground where they ran. “…Without breaking anything.” 

**”It is just the floor.”**

“This is going to take longer than I thought.” Peter said with a sigh.

Eddie was prodded awake by Venom before the alien pulled back into him, only leaving its head out. He didn’t know where the balloons came from, and didn’t want to ask Peter about it, or the extra destruction that had happened while he was out. The kid looked fine, so that meant whatever they’d been up to hadn’t hurt him.

“Did you two have fun?”

**”No.”** Venom said, sounding moody. **”But now he has to be quiet.”**

“All I did was sleep and still I get something out of it.” Eddie said with a smile. 

“Hey!” Peter tried to sound offended, but Eddie could see he was fighting a smile himself. “You two go ahead, I’m going to clean up in here.”

“You aren’t going to clean up anything. You just want to watch me struggle over that stupid train.” Peter snorted, “Venom thinks it’s funny too, it’s why he hardly helps me with it. _You_ go first. If you really want to clean up the balloons for the roaches, you can come back later. And tell your aunt thanks for the snacks!” Peter hopped up onto the train, and they heard him make it to the other side in no time. Eddie looked at Venom, knowing that it wanted to tell him something after the kid was out of hearing range. 

**”He has put another bug onto us.”** Venom offered the small device to Eddie with a tendril, its legs wiggling as it tried to grab onto something. Instead of telling the alien to crush it like all of the others, he let it hook on to the inside of his pocket. **”What if we go somewhere we do not want him to follow?”**

“Then we won’t bring it with us. He might need to find us if there’s an emergency. I’m sure he won’t use it just to bother us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, Peter uses the spidey-tracer just to bother them.   
> And Venom gets to meet someone new.


	14. Chapter 14

After having some time to think about it, Peter was sure that they had been lying about where they lived. Even if he wasn't renting anywhere, there were dozens of better places than the sewer, and with their abilities it would be easy for them to make it into more restricted areas like old, locked up buildings. Venom likely said that because the alien knew that Peter wouldn’t want to go into the sewers, and Eddie probably went along with it just because he didn’t want him knowing where they lived. What _they_ didn’t know is that he managed to get a tracer on them, and would find out where they actually lived anyway. 

“Karen, what’s been the movement on the tracker?” Peter asked as he put on his mask, not wanting to catch them while they were wandering around as it might make them suspicious. 

“There has been no movement since last night, Peter. We are prepared to make an arrest.”

“What-! No! We aren’t arresting anyone!”

“Shall I deactivate the tracer?”

“Don’t deactivate it! We need it to find them.”

“Are they in danger?” 

“No, Karen, I just want to find out where they’re living.”

“Understood. We are breaking and entering.”

“We are _entering_ , not breaking anything.” Peter climbed out of his window, swinging off toward where the marker on the map was. He stopped a few times on the way to help people, but the marker hadn’t moved at all by the time he was nearly on top of it. The area didn’t look like he imagined, there were a lot of people walking about, the stores they were going into looked reputable, and the housing looked fairly new. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place Venom, or even Eddie, would blend in. 

“Karen, where exactly are they? Which building?” 

“The signal is coming from a subterranean area.”

“From _where?_ ”

“Subterranean means that they are located below ground.”

“I know what it means, but they’re actually… They’re actually in the sewers?”

“I will bring up a map of the sewer system and locate the entrance closest to them.”

Peter sincerely hoped that they were actually there and hadn’t just flushed the tracer down the toilet. The manhole was up an alley, which he was grateful for because the last thing he needed was a picture of Spider-Man climbing into a sewer to start trending.   
It smelled worse down here than he’d imagined, Peter had planned to climb on the ceiling of the tunnels, but they were covered in just as much, if not more, grime as the walkways, and he definitely didn’t want to use his hands on the ceiling. His spider-sense warned him about different puddles on the ground and patches of algae, as stepping on any of them would lead to slipping.

“How can he live down here? It’s awful!” he complained. It didn’t look like Venom had a nose, and considering the fact it liked to eat people, he didn’t think that it would be too picky about its environment.

“He is not the only one.”

“Like sewer monsters?!”

“Other humans without homes live down here as well.” 

“Oh.” Peter’s shoulders drooped, he knew that the homeless situation in New York was bad, but people needing to resort to the sewers for shelter was just terrible. 

“And sewer monsters. There are several claims of there being unknown species coming out of manholes.”

“Unconfirmed, right? Just guys in suits or edited photos.”

“There are legitimate photographs of unidentified creatures in the sewer system, would you like to see them?”

“…I don’t want to see those while I’m wandering around in the sewers, Karen.” He picked up his pace, starting to think that maybe he didn’t actually have to _see_ where Venom was living, and leave actually visiting only when there was an emergency. The biggest thing he’d expected to see was a rat, but maybe there _were_ sewer monsters living down here that didn’t bother Venom. 

“You’re being stupid, you aren’t going to see any—” He froze as he turned the corner and in the darkness saw a human-sized being, but it’s proportions were all wrong, its hands and feet were huge and shone unnaturally along with the rest of its body, and he couldn’t even see eyes or a mouth on the thing. “Sewer monster!” he shouted out, moving back around the corner to hide from it.

“Chill, Spider-Man.” He heard a muffled, but familiar voice, and looked back around the corner. The person pulled the paint mask off of their face and the head lamp off their head, letting out a mass of frizzy hair. He immediately recognized Michelle Jones, who was definitely dressed for the place, wearing rubber waders on suspenders, gloves and boots. He walked toward her, the eyes on his mask squinting as he thought of the odds of him running into someone he knew while in the sewers.

“What are you doing here, M---” Peter had to stop himself from saying her name, clearing his throat before speaking again with a deeper voice. “What are you doing here, miss?” 

“Looking for sewer monsters.” 

“What? There aren’t any sewer monsters.” 

“Yeah, there are. There’s the big, dark slimy one with sharp teeth, I saw it eating not too far from here above ground, then it climbed into the sewer.”

“Eating…?” Peter blanched beneath his mask, “What was it eating? People? Animals?” 

“Some moldy pizza out of a dumpster. It ate half of the box too.”

“Ew.” Peter didn’t know if he should ask Eddie about that or not. “This is way too dangerous.”

“I brought pepper spray.” 

“That’s not going to do anything even if it did exist.”

“It has huge eyes, there’s no way I’ll miss. And now I have you to protect me.”

“Me? I’m not even looking for that thing.”

“Then what are you doing in this specific part of the sewers?” 

“That is none of your concern, citizen.” Was his response, as he couldn’t think of any good fake reason to be down here. 

“You’re looking for it too. I saw the photos of you fighting it. How’d you get out of that alive? It was totally kicking your ass.” 

“How do you know that? Were you there?” he couldn’t help get a bit defensive even though she was right.

“No, but my friend was there taking pictures, and he didn’t come to school the day after that. If it’s really that dangerous, I don’t think you should be down here alone either.” The eyes on Peter’s mask widened, he didn’t think that she had been worried about him or had correlated the photos he took with the time he took off school, of course she thought he’d been hurt.

“No, they’re… they aren’t dangerous. Most of the time, they wouldn’t hurt any teenagers like you or your friend. They’re pretty nice to kids. I just wanted to find out where they were living.”

“Great, I’m going with you.” She put her mask back on, “I want to meet them.”

“That’s a really bad idea.” 

“I could keep wandering around in the sewers until I die.” 

“There’s the third option, where you climb back out of the sewers.” Spider-Man knew that she wouldn’t be in danger with Venom, the alien didn’t like him and it still hadn’t tried to hurt him again. “Fine, you can come. But if _they_ ask you to leave, you have to.” 

“It’s their house, so I’ll leave if they ask.” She agreed. “And I can call the cops if you get into trouble with it.” 

“Thanks, but I don’t think the cops will be able to help much.” 

Peter didn’t know how to bridge the awkward silence that was happening between them, well, it was awkward for Peter, MJ seemed just fine with it. Their next turn took them away from the water, so steadily the smell became more bearable and the area less damp. She took her mask off again, sticking it and her rubber gloves into the large pockets of the waders. It got darker too, as there were only a few sewer grates above the area to allow light in. Karen allowed Peter to see in the dark, which let MJ follow him safely with her own lamp. 

“We’re really close now.” Peter whispered, looking back at MJ as he walked, “Oh, and whatever you do, don’t call him a p—” The area was suddenly filled with light, and Peter’s couldn’t see until Karen turned off the night vision. He saw that there were motion sensing floodlights above them, and then saw what looked to be multiple ropes of the alien’s body adhered to the walls of the area. The mass got larger in the center, and he saw that Eddie was asleep on the strands of the alien, though the bright lights made him stir a bit. Venom’s head was on his stomach, and it raised up to look at the intruders, baring its teeth before all of its body pulled inward and covered Eddie, Venom landed on all fours, moving toward them with a hiss.

“How’s it going, Venom?” Peter asked, trying not to sound nervous as the alien stalked toward them, MJ was smart enough not to try and approach them.

**”We are hungry. Eddie will not feed us because of _you_ , Spider-Man.”** When they were close enough, they stood up and loomed over the two teens, **”You think that bringing us a snack will make us forgive you?”** Venom looked to MJ, grinning menacingly as drool dripped from their mouth.

“Venom’s just trying to scare us.” Spider-Man said, keeping out the fact that it was working, he moved between the creature and the girl just in case the alien was serious. With Eddie asleep, he didn’t know if it had any reservations about harming kids. “I want to see Eddie.” He heard MJ shuffling through her bag behind him and hoped that she wasn’t going to try and use pepper spray on them.

“Here.” Peter did a double take as she held a Snickers bar over his shoulder, he saw the alien’s eyes widen at the strange offering. 

“They… They’re not going to want a candy bar—” He was proven wrong as the alien took the bar carefully between two claws from her, unwrapping it and scarfing it down, its eyes smiling as much as its mouth was. “What—How—I don’t. _How_ did you know Venom liked those?!” he turned around, the other teen only shrugged. 

“You said he’s normally nice to kids, and he looked hungry. Haven’t you seen those Snickers commercials? ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.”

“… That doesn’t explain at all how that worked.” Peter said, then suddenly had a realization, “ _The ads._ ” He was shoved aside by Venom, who leaned down to look at MJ.

**”We do like those ads. But we like chocolate more.”** Venom gave the wrapper back to MJ, **”And we like you.”**

“Cool. I like you too.” She put the wrapper into her bag, “Can we talk to Eddie?”

Venom answered by withdrawing into the man, who was left standing upright for a moment before tipping backward, waking up as soon as he hit the ground, he swore loudly and grabbed his head. 

“I know you.” MJ said as the man sat up. “You’re Peter Parker’s writing tutor.” Spider-Man stared at her, wondering how she knew about that, “What a coincidence.” 

“Coincidence?! Uh, yes! That’s the… that’s the lad that takes photos of me.” Peter said, going back to making his voice sound deeper.

“You’re the only person in real life that I’ve ever heard say ‘lad’.” Michelle said, like the word was an offensive one.

“What’s going on?” Eddie asked, squinting at the two of them, “What happened? And who’s this… well dressed lady you’ve brought with you?”

“Michelle Jones. Where’d your buddy go?” Venom surged out of Eddie’s shoulder, grinning at the girl. 

**”I am still here, Michelle Jones.”**

“ _You_ can call me MJ. Can I feel you?” Venom nodded and she put her hands on either side of its ‘head’ and seemed to be trying to squish its cheeks, getting drool all over herself in the process. “I should have kept my gloves on.”

“There’s no emergency or anything.” Peter was glancing between Eddie and Venom as MJ continued to play with the alien’s face. “I just… I thought you were lying about living here.”

“If I was gonna lie to you about where we live, I would say I had something cool like a Batcave. How did you find us anyway?”

“Oh, I… um… was just looking around… in the sewers for you. Michelle here actually reported seeing you go in around this area.” 

“Spider-Man, it’s the weekend.” Eddie put his hands over his eyes, “I’ve got tutoring with that kid five days a week during the day, I’d like a morning to myself.”

“It’s two in the afternoon!” Peter exclaimed, even though Eddie had every right to be cranky, the webslinger was feeling peeved himself. Here were Venom and MJ getting along immediately, when it had taken him a while to be considered the girl’s friend, and the alien still hated his guts. “And why didn’t you tell me that he likes chocolate? I’m buying him a whole box of chocolates tonight.” 

**”If you gave us chocolate now, we know it would be you just trying to buy our acceptance.”**

“Don’t be fake, Spider-Man.” MJ agreed, scratching the top of Venom’s head. 

“We’d still really appreciate the chocolate.” Eddie interjected. 

“I’ll get you chocolate.” Venom eating chocolate was much better than any alternatives that Peter had imagined. “I still can’t believe you actually live here. How do you do anything? Do you wait to go to the bathroom at the library? Where do you shower?” He had to bite back an offer to let them shower at the apartment when May was out since MJ was right there. 

“I…uh…” Eddie looked deeply perplexed, so much so that Venom’s attention was turned away from MJ as it looked at its host, “I can’t remember the last time I showered. Or went to the bathroom, actually.”

“How… how do you not notice that?” Eddie didn’t smell like he’d been living in the sewers without showering, but that wasn’t nearly as weird as him not using the bathroom. “That’s not possible. Everything that eats has to… uh…”

**”We take care of it.”** Venom said, nudging MJ’s hand to make her start petting it again. 

“Where does it all go? Do you sweat it out? Or do you—”

“I don’t really want to know about this, can you talk about it later?” MJ wiped her hands off on her waders before she took out her phone. “Can I get a picture with you?” 

**”Yes!”** Venom covered the man up before he could say anything out loud. **”Eddie says turn off your location and do not sell this.”**

“Believe me, I don’t want anybody finding me.” She tried to hold the phone out for the selfie, but it was hard to get Venom in the shot, Peter was going to offer to help, but the alien wrapped a tendril around her phone and held it out, acting as a selfie stick. They took a couple pictures, Venom wasn’t just grinning in all of them, they seemed to actually be smiling for the camera, in a couple of them they stuck their tongue out and gave MJ bunny ears. They were especially amused by that last one when she reviewed the pictures. 

**”We got you!”**

“You sure did.” MJ sounded like an adult humoring a child, “I bet Eddie wants to go back to sleeping, so I’ll head out now.”

“Good idea.” Peter was eager to leave, as he doubted the alien was going to get any less cranky “Let’s get walking. It was great to see you, Venom.” 

**”You do not have to walk. We will carry MJ to the exit.”**

“That’s really sweet, but I can walk.” MJ patted Venom’s large arm, “I’ll see you around. Not here because I don’t want to come back down into the sewers again, but I’ll see you at the library.”

**”We can watch online videos with one another.”**

“Or read a book, the library’s full of those. I’ll bring some recommendations.” 

“Bye!” Peter didn't want the conversation to keep going, so he walked quickly out of the area, the floodlights turning off behind them. He knew he should be glad that Venom wasn’t awful to MJ, but he only wished he could get along with the alien as fast as she had. He was also embarrassed about the whole exchange, now sure that the girl probably thought he was a dork compared to the alien.

“Hey, Spider-Man.” MJ started to put her gear back on, “Thanks for coming along, I feel way better about seeing them running around now. And I’m sure you saved my friend from them too, so thanks.” He took a moment to process that she was actually thanking him.

“Oh, it’s… it’s really no trouble. I just wish Venom didn’t hate me so much.”

“I think if Venom really hated you that much, you’d be dead. So they must like you a little bit.”

"That's not very comforting... Do you know any good chocolate shops in this area?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan on seeing the new movie soon! I hope my MJ matches up to how she's written in the new movie!  
> Originally, it was going to be Ned going along with Peter, but I couldn't find a good reason for him to want to go down with Peter, so I chose MJ since she seems more adventurous and it worked out well.
> 
> Coming up next, Peter and Venom get into a real battle!


End file.
